Michelle Claire Gevint is an Israeli-American visual artist who works in photography, video and installation. After graduating from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem she resided to NY where she received a scholarship from Parsons to complete her MFA. Gevint has exhibited in group shows such as the Fridman gallery, NY, Trestle gallery, NY, Hermitage Museum, Russia, Beijing Design Festival, China, Sotheby’s Chicago, Lite-Haus Galerie, Berlin, and the Bronx Museum NY. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Chicago Sun Times, Recinema catalogue, Sidney College of Arts , Arts Culture Beat, Columbia university blog and Humble Arts Foundation.
Urban Speculation
My work is influenced by the place where I was raised, Israel, a country built on a dream, but in reality a place of conflict. This led me to produce the work titled ‘Urban Speculation’, a recreated fictitious urban environment. My focus is a collaged architecture, which stands as a metaphor for a failed promise. Architecture is charged with a symbolic language that I manipulate, creating a desolate environment that resembles a post-war city scenario.
The process includes collecting internet-based imagery that references Modernism, a style affiliated with forms of Utopian thought which strived to better human life through design of space. By creating fictitious collages, I perpetuate the failure of Utopian architecture. I render a Utopian reality once realized, becomes dystopian. The outcome is a post-apocalyptic environment composed of uncanny structures, creating a city of fragments from the past, present and future.
To view more of Michelle’s work please visit her website.