Hope was a creatively vague commission with instructions to use shades of blue. That's it. Clement had recently acquired some yellow roses, a color which he has come to dearly love and which is prominent in many of his works, especially his Missing the Mark series. For Clement, yellow is a hopeful color, reminiscent of a sunny day, and, with the rose's orangey tones, it seemed only natural to pair the beautiful yellow-orange rose against a background of blue.

Hope represents the rays of the Sun shining upon the viewers, who are represented by the rose, embracing them in life and warmth and causing them to flourish ... but only for a time! There is a deeper meaning here: the matter of the rose may be long dead, yet its form continues to live. Considering this, it may seem that earthly life is impermanent, but there is more than meets the eye.

Hope, then, is an allegory of the hope of future resurrection, emphasizing the sanctity of what presently remains in the precious and fragile corpse of the rose, with an eye ever toward its future glory. Hope stands as a counter to conventional wisdom, boldly proclaiming that it is death which is truly passing and life which truly remains.