About Claire Nitze:
Claire Nitze studied photography at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies, as well as at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Her work has shown at Filtro Foto Gallery in Miami as a featured artist for Art Basel and Art Miami. She is currently exhibiting at Davis Waldron Gallery in Atlanta. Claire lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
About The Project:
Façade: Miami in Color
On a basic, primary level, these photographs are about color and line, shadow and structure. They capture unremarkable scenes, in a sense — walls, sidewalks, imperfections — but for me, the straightforward simplicity of the images is their strength.
The project also opens a window onto a changing city, one desperate to be noticed and desired. When I first moved to Miami in 2003, I was struck by the flair and speed of the place, the glitz and the shine that defines it. But eventually, in the older, poorer neighborhoods at the edges of all that, I saw something that seemed closer to its true soul: nameless, vacant buildings painted bright, arresting colors along blocks of empty warehouses and tenements. The real beauty in these unnoticed streets comes from the spirit that makes someone bother with paint when plain concrete would be so much easier.
In the years since I began this project, many of the buildings and sidewalks have been cleaned up or simply replaced. The city is working hard to make itself new, but what you see here came first.