Charlotte Abramov

Charlotte Abramow was born in Belgium in 1993. 

at age 7, she enjoyed taking pictures of her friends on the playground with a disposable camera, then at age 13, she developed a passion for photography. Starting at age 15, she photographed her friends, then other teenage girls who inspired her, creating a little story with each shot. At 16, she had a life-changing encounter with Paolo Roversi during an internship at the Rencontres d’Arles. The following year, Paolo Roversi wrote an article about Charlotte’s images titled “The Fragility and Soul of a Warrior,” which appeared in Polka Magazine in 2011. This encounter reinforced Charlotte’s determination to turn her passion into a career. Her photos began circulating widely among high school girls and reached their parents, some of whom worked in the fashion industry. At age 17, while still in high school, Charlotte began creating various projects for magazines and up-and-coming Belgian brands, notably appearing on the cover of ELLE Belgique. In 2013, at age 19, the Belgian photographer moved to Paris to study at Gobelins, L’École de l’Image. Her work won the Prix Picto for Young Fashion Photography in 2014. She graduated in June 2015 and was named a finalist in the Photo Folio Review Awards at the Rencontres d’Arles a month later. She exhibited her project on breast diversity, “The Real Boobs,” during the Rencontres’ Nuit de l’Année. Since 2014, her work has primarily explored relationships with the body, women, and the stages of life, presenting these elements in an absurd manner within a world tinged with surrealism.

at age 24, Charlotte took on the visual direction of the “BROL” project by the breakout Belgian singer Angèle, for which she shot all the photographs. Through this artistic collaboration, Charlotte made her debut as a director with “La Loi de Murphy” and “Je Veux Tes Yeux.” The two music videos—meticulously crafted yet absurd—were a hit online, racking up millions of views combined. In 2018, Charlotte directed a music video for Georges Brassens, “Les Passantes,” which was released on March 8 to mark International Women’s Rights Day. On the same day, it was flagged by YouTube as inappropriate for viewers under 18 due to “offensive content.” The music video received the “Women’s Rights Award” presented by the State Secretariat for Gender Equality. On November 3, 2018, the artist released her first book, “Maurice, Tristesse et rigolade,” which chronicles the recovery and rebirth of her father, who battled cancer and suffered a coma that left him with brain damage. The book is part of the Maurice Project, funded in 2016 by 777 contributors via Kickstarter. While the project was still in development, it had already received extensive media coverage and a Special Mention at the Photo Folio Review Awards at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2017. In June 2017, the photographer traveled to the Faroe Islands to meet with the locals and, together with them, create a creative portrait. Titled “They Love Trampoline,” the series of images was exhibited with Galerie Fisheye at Paris Photo in November 2018, and Charlotte was selected as one of eight Paris Photo artists highlighted by The New York Times.

In 2019, Charlotte directed Angèle’s feminist music video “Balance Ton Quoi.” The video explores the roles of the justice system and education in the fight for equality and features a short comedy skit with Pierre Niney. At age 25, she led her first workshop at the Rencontres d’Arles, nine years after meeting Paolo Roversi there as an intern. That same year, her book “Maurice, Tristesse et rigolade” was a finalist for the Prix Nadar. Charlotte’s work was exhibited at the Richard Taittinger Gallery in New York as part of the group exhibition “The Female Lens” from October to December 2019, alongside works by Diane Arbus, Shirin Neshat, and Rania Matar.

In early 2020, she conceived and produced “Le Petit Manuel Sex Education” for Netflix to coincide with the release of Season 2 of the series *Sex Education*. This 64-page publication on the topic of sex education features photos and text and was distributed free of charge in a print run of 75,000 copies in France. A massive poster campaign ran for two weeks, featuring, among other images, actress Emma Mackey with a clitoris sculpture, a gay couple kissing, and an image evoking menstruation. During the 2021 Rencontres d’Arles, she presented her first French retrospective exhibition at the Fisheye Gallery. In 2022, she held her first major retrospective exhibition, “Volle Pétrole,” at Le Hangar in Belgium. Regardless of the medium or subject, Charlotte’s guiding principle is to portray humanity in a poetic and metaphorical way. 

Text excerpted from the Fisheye Gallery website.