Clarissa Bonet writes: “City Space is about my understanding and connection to the urban environment. I draw upon personal observations to create images that deconstruct the urban experience, looking at scale, pedestrianism, anonymity, public space, and anxiety. I use stark light, deep shadow, and muted color as visual strategies to portray the essence of pedestrian life at the city’s center—a transitory space in which the masses convene for brief moments of time.
“I borrow from the genre and practice of street photography, expanding what it means to make work on, and of, the street. By constructing images based on the psychological impact of personal experiences and chance encounters in the city, I complicate the tradition of street photography, conceptualizing the city experience, instead, as mysterious, monumental, fragmented, overwhelming, or magical.
“City Space is an ongoing series, started more than seven years in Chicago, where I live. The work functions as a metaphor for life in flux in the modern city. As we become a global society, the population is shifting from suburban and rural landscapes to urban centers. As a transplant to the city, I know that this shift can be fraught with mixed emotions. By pointing to the mundane yet powerful moments of a pedestrian’s commute, I ask the viewer to reference their own experience and perhaps change the way in which they see and navigate space.”