ClampArt is happy to present “Filthy Gorgeous: Self Portraits by John Arsenault” – - the artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery.

Raised in a small town in northern Massachusetts, John Arsenault moved to New York City in 1997 to pursue a degree in photography at the School of Visual Arts. Since that time, he has been routinely turning his camera’s lens back upon himself, producing an outlandish and absurd, wild and exotic account of his life as a young, gay artist. Exploring facets of his personal relationships, his sexuality, and his identity, Arsenault constructs varied scanarios that not only tell the story of his experiences, but also comment upon society at large. Arsenault’s work is a fresh and unusual hybrid of documentary and constructed photography, an apt reflection of our culture’s current fascination with the layering of reality and fiction.

Arsenault has a great eye for the strange, the unexpected, and the laugh-out-loud ridiculous. He is not afraid to poke fun at himself, and thus, is able to comment upon matters of broad cultural import without seeming shrill or pedantic.

As writer Dan Halm has concluded, “One can learn a lot about oneself through another’s eyes.”