Bonet, Clarissa

American, b. 1986 Florida

BiographyClarissa Bonet’s street scenes for her City Space series (2011-2016) are re-staged from events she witnesses as a pedestrian living in Chicago. Isolated from the city’s continuous crowd of strangers, the fleeting experiences of anonymous individuals unfold within the stark contrasts of light and shadow provided by the city’s looming architecture. Through these reinterpretations of chance encounters and observations from crossing paths with thousands of strangers, Bonet’s images give the viewer a glimpse into the unique experience of living within an interminable urban landscape.
Born in Tampa, Florida, Clarissa Bonet completed her MFA in photography at Columbia College Chicago (2012) and her BS in Photography at the University of Central Florida (2008). Her work has been exhibited at the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, Aperture Foundation, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, among others, and has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNN Photo, Chicago Magazine, and many other publications both nationally and internationally. In addition to the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Bonet’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Southeast Museum of Photography, Haggerty Museum of Art, University Club Chicago, and the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection. In 2022, she received an Individual Artist Grant and Fellowship Finalist award from the Illinois Arts Council. Her work also won inclusion in “The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today” at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Bonet lives and works in Chicago, IL.
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