From Vince Aletti’s review of “Barmaid” for The New Yorker:
This witty and unexpectedly soulful memoir about the artist’s stint working at a Bay Area bar takes the form of portraits, self-portraits, and atmospheric still-lifes. Leather was the official dress code, but not every patron obeyed it: one wears a plastic leopard head, another a beard and an elaborate nun’s habit; others wear nothing at all. Arsenault surveyed the scene with an insider’s fondness for eccentricity, and a diarist’s attention to detail: a paper napkin peeling off a bottle that holds a pink rose, a hand holding a note that reads, “I used to be a woman.”
Browse the exhibition “Barmaid” at ClampArt
Browse all of John Arsenault’s work at ClampArt