For You!: Modern Day Love Letters

John Arsenault's flowery photographs in For You! do not highlight perfection but, rather, show the continual wrestling act between beauty and decay. The result of a long-term exploration on the seductive beauty of the rose, these intimate and varied images stand as a symbol of the artist's budding ardor for his lover, now husband. Historically, roses have been used to symbolize desire, sexuality, seductiveness, and secrecy; this in-depth study is testament to the continued potency of the time-honored symbol of love.

John Arsenault is internationally exhibited and has worked with clients ranging from The New Yorker and Volkswagen to Goldman Sachs and Out Magazine.

Brian Paul Clamp is the owner and director of ClampArt, a gallery in Chelsea in New York City specializing in modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on photography. ClampArt mounts ten to fifteen exhibitions per year featuring the work of emerging and mid-career artists. Mr. Clamp opened the gallery in 2000 after completing a Master of Arts degree in Critical Studies in Modern Art at Columbia University. For eight years prior to that Mr. Clamp served as the director of a gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side specializing in late 19th- and early 20th-century American paintings. Aside from exhibitions at his own gallery space, Clamp has curated numerous photography shows at various venues throughout the United States, and has reviewed photographers’ portfolios at dozens of events over many years. Mr. Clamp is the author of numerous publications on American art to date, and also occasionally contributes written work to various art periodicals.

Rock Hushka is Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary and Northwest Art at Tacoma Art Museum and serves as Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. Hushka has curated more than 75 projects including
Art AIDS America; Matika Wilbur’s Project 562; The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff, A Reworking of Spem in Alium 1573, by Thomas Tallis; Andy Warhol’s Flowers for Tacoma; Memories and Meditations: A Retrospective of Michael Kenna's Photography; Mary Lucier: Plains of Sweet Regret; and more than 20 major exhibition and catalogue projects for regional artists including four Northwest biennial exhibitions. Hushka has recevied two National Endowment for the Arts grants for the permanent colleciton publication Best of the Northwest: Selected Works from Tacoma Art Museum and the forthcoming The Paintings Zhi Lin: Reclaiming the Lost History of Chinese Migrant Laborers on the Transcontinental Railroad. In 2010, Hushka shared a Research Fellowship from the Warhol Foundation for the for nationally touring exhibition Art AIDS America.