Metamorphosis
Where is the boundary between the real and the projected?
Charlotte Aeb's work explores this threshold by transforming a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional form. A face becomes deconstructed, turning into a hybrid figure—part human, part other. Through this distortion, the artist probes the fragility of perception and suggests that the world, like identity, is never fixed, but in constant transformation.
At the heart of her process are clay masks and plaster plates coated with photosensitive substances, which she exposes to light to print analog images. This technique allows her to merge sculpture and photography, creating living objects.
Originally from Fribourg, Charlotte Aeb draws part of her inspiration from childhood memories marked by carnival. This annual event, rich in symbolism and ritual, left a deep imprint on her imagination. For her, the mask is a liberating gesture, a means of metamorphosis, of exploring new facets of identity, or even of protest.
In the laboratory, gestures, rhythms, and habits return, as if they had been stored not in the mind but in the body itself. The relationship with chemistry, with light, with the timing of revelation becomes a ritual in itself, a form of technical as much as sensory memory. Photographic printing and casting are ways of embodying the gesture.
Though contemporary, this process resonates with ancient practices such as the casting of death masks, attempts to preserve the image of a face beyond death. Before photography, these impressions were among the only means of remembering the deceased. Later, post-mortem photography extended this desire to capture the image beyond disappearance. By reinterpreting these gestures, Charlotte Aeb connects casting and imagery to explore memory.
Through this practice, Aeb questions the fragility of perception and the instability of identity, while highlighting the impossibility of fully grasping reality. The mask, central to her work, embodies a persistent duality between memory and metamorphosis ,becoming a palimpsest, a fragile witness to what has been and what is no longer.
Charlotte Aeb is a visual artist and photographer based in Lausanne, Switzerland. For over ten years, she has combined photography, installation, and experimentation to explore the fragile boundary between reality and fiction, capturing the moments when they become indistinguishable. Since 2020, her research has focused on liminal spaces—those transitional zones where emptiness becomes a language. Her work engages with metamorphosis, perception, and the voluntary suspension of disbelief at the core of our collective fictions.
After completing her studies, in 2015 she traveled through Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hanoi, Hobart, and Sydney, exhibiting in small galleries along the way. In 2017, she co-directed a short film presented at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival and at UpLink Cinema in Tokyo. She then engaged in experimental projects such as PORNFOOD (2018), a video series in collaboration with noise musicians, shown at Galerie Meovco and in Novosibirsk, as well as an interactive project supported by the Migros Cultural Percentage, exhibited at Galerie Strates and Galerie 3000 in Bern.
Winner of the Nyon Arts Day Prize in 2019 for Curves, she went on to develop exhibitions and residencies both in Switzerland and abroad. In 2024, she joined the Yenisch Museum in Vevey for a residency and presented Derrière l'Évidence at Galerie ArtNow (Carouge). In early 2025, she pursued her research at Acentricspace (Shanghai) with Somewhere, The Sun is Melting, a photographic and audiovisual project exploring the dissolution of reality and the fragility of our collective belief in fiction. In March 2025, she presented Where the Void Begins, a solo exhibition at Artsight Gallery (Stockholm). Her work will soon be shown at the OFF Bratislava.
In parallel, Charlotte Aeb is a member of several artist and photographer collectives (Strates, Pool Collective, aperti, EAF). For her, being part of collectives is a way to create differently, to gather, to meet others, and to share meaningful moments together.
Opening:
19.09.2025 | 19:30
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Thurdsay | 10:00–18:00
Friday | 12:00–20:00
Saturday–Sunday | 12:00–17:00
Gallery of Modern Art Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz