Clarissa Bonet

Clarissa Bonet (American, b. 1986)

Fortress

2016

Archival pigment print

11 x 13 3/4 inch image on 14 x 16 3/4 inch paper

Signed edition of 30

For her City Space series (2011-16), Clarissa Bonet observes and takes note of chance encounters and interactions she witnesses between strangers on the streets of downtown Chicago. Initially recording the interactions with her iPhone in what she calls “sketches,” Bonet later restages the moments, carefully setting up her location, lighting, and models to recreate the scene. The resulting pictures portray mundane exchanges as dramatic, with individuals anonymously and solitarily navigating a confounding urban terrain.

Bonet’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Haggerty Museum, Milwaukee; the Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, Florida; the University Club Chicago; and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor; among others. Her work has been exhibited at the Calumet Gallery, Chicago (2013); Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, Florida (2012); the Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, Colorado (2012); and at the Pingyao International Photo Festival in China (2011). She received her MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2012.