Clarissa Bonet: City Space
Terminal 2
I use the city as a stage and transform the physical space into a psychological one.
—Clarissa Bonet, 2016
Clarissa Bonet: City Space
In her ongoing series, City Space, Chicago-based artist Clarissa Bonet explores the urban landscape from a pedestrian perspective, producing dramatic images that draw focus both on the surface of the city and the psychological resonance of the architecture within it.
As part of her working process, Bonet roams the city, observing the idiosyncrasies of the urban environment and taking note of chance encounters and interactions between strangers and their surroundings. Bonet later restages these moments during ideal weather and lighting conditions to produce striking photographs that evoke the almost contradictory sensation of solitude one often feels amidst the towering buildings and anonymous crowds of the city. Transformed by the artist’s use of deep shadow, striking light, and muted color, routine moments become elevated and hyper-real, offering an opportunity for us to reflect upon our own relationship with the urban environment.
Born in Tampa, Florida, Clarissa Bonet earned an MFA from Columbia College Chicago and a BS from the University of Central Florida. Her work has been exhibited globally at venues including the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Aperture Foundation in New York, and the Ballarat International Foto Biennale in Australia. Bonet’s work has been featured in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNN Photo, Harper's Bazaar, and Juxtapoz, among others. Her photographs are held in numerous institutional and corporate collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach, the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, the University Club Chicago, and the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection. Bonet’s project, Stray Light, is partially supported by an Individual Artist Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, as well as a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Bonet lives and works in Chicago.
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