Charlotte Aeb - photographer

Between Flesh and Void

Charlotte Aeb belongs to that generation for whom photography is not simply a medium, but a field of research. Trained at the Vevey School of Photography (CEPV), she developed early on an experimental approach where the image is constructed as much in the shooting as in the material that carries it.

In her early projects, everything begins with the body, its texture and fragile presence. The series Curves (2018) marks this first territory. The artist explores flesh as an intimate and abstract landscape. Forms, folds, and masses become a visual cartography that questions the gaze and identification of the female body.

Gradually, the body gives way to space. Charlotte Aeb photographs "liminal spaces"—staircases, corridors, half-open doors—zones of transition where presence is suggested rather than shown. In these silent architectures, emptiness becomes matter, and the viewer is invited to project their own experience onto it.

The series Melancholia illustrates this stage of her research. The artist introduces human figures there, imaginary witnesses to worlds suspended between waking and dreaming, in the manner of Roy Andersson. These invented characters inhabit the spaces and participate in the tension between presence and absence, real and fiction.

At the dawn of her thirties, Charlotte Aeb devotes more time to her personal research. She fabricates objects, models clay or wax, then photographs these forms, while deepening her analog practice. In her project Metamorphosis, she prints clay masks using analog processes, transforming objects into images and continuing her reflection on the relationship to reality.

Charlotte conceives her exhibitions as active experiences. Photography remains at the center, but it also unfolds in light, volume, and installation. She doesn't limit herself to representing reality: she explores its thresholds and transition zones, where seeing implies active engagement from the viewer.

Author: Marie Bagi, Director of MAF & PhD in Contemporary Art History and Philosophy

Published January 9, 2026​

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