Charlotte Fröling

Charlotte Fröling was born in Sweden in 1964. She lives and works in Stockholm. She studied economics at the University of Stockholm and worked within the financial sector for many years.

Later on she began studying international and Swedish art history and developed a passionate interest in the subject. This lead to her pursuing a career in photography and she held her first exhibition, Nature in Harmony in 2008. The motifs in the Nature in Harmony series are all from Falsterbo, a small village in the southern part of Sweden. She tried to catch the serenity and the tranquillity of the nature down in Falsterbo with its long white beaches.

Encouraged by the clients of her first exhibition she bought her first large format camera in 2009 and began shooting the Flowering Beauties series. These were inspired by the flower still lifes painted in the 17th Century. Instead of depicting many flowers she made close-ups of carefully chosen flowers against a golden background. In 2011 she started working on the Garden of Eden series. Like many artists through the centuries she wanted to capture the divine beauty of nature. These pictures demanded more technical skills therefore she attended photography courses at Fotografiska in Stockholm. The inspiration to the Garden of Eden series came from the well-balanced compositions of the Baroque landscape painters. The light played an important role and she wanted it to

flow through the various colours of the leaves, like in the impressionists' paintings. Impatiently she followed the weather forecast to be able to catch the gardens in mist, giving the work a soft light quality.

In 2014 she started working on the project she had dreamt of for many years, The Still Lifes series. She wanted to recreate still lifes inspired by historical paintings. Therefore she put lots of effort in the details and their symbolism, trying to find antique objects, vegetables, fruits, flowers etc. resembling those in the old masters paintings. The theme of the transitory is fundamental to 17th century still life painting, as if the paintings in themselves sought to convey the idea that life is short whereas art is eternal. Many small details were included to underscore this message such as glasses that have fallen over, decaying flowers and blown out candles.

Charlotte's aim was to photograph all the categories such as fish still lifes, banquet pieces, floral pieces and many more. When arranging and photographing the still lives she sought to arrange them to achieve the best possible angle of vision and the best light.