Artist left after nothing said (4)
I believe the answer is:
oral
'said' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'artist left after nothing' is the wordplay.
'artist' becomes 'ra' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'nothing' becomes 'o' (looks like zero - 0).
'ra'+'l'='ral'
'ral' after 'o' is 'ORAL'.
(Other definitions for oral that I've seen before include "'Spoken, not written (4)'" , "Spoken, of the mouth" , "Relating to speech" , "Unwritten examination" , "Vocal test" .)