Charlotte Ballesteros

Charlotte Ballesteros - Paris September 21st 1988 / Paris September 21st 2019.

Being born and dying on the same day as your birthday already evokes the tragedy of a life too short and the mystery of permanence and resurrection, a major theme in the work of Anselm O Kiefer.

2006 - Student at “l’école St Sulpice”, Paris, in art and philosophy. The singularity and expressivity of her work are noticed by her art teacher. For her study, Charlotte offers an interpretation of the raft of Caravaggio's jellyfish by reinterpreting the wooden boat, from an assembly of cut plexiglass plates impregnated with blood made of red gouache, painted on the hair and the torn bodies of the Barbie dolls she used to have when she was 10 years old. End of a world and end of childhood made up of the joy of friendships and travels, but also of hypersensitivity and suffering deeply felt and revealed in a favorite theme: inner wounds, open and sometimes healed wounds, the impacts, the traces, all mark of our humanity which is one with nature, engraved forever in the places, on the stone and in the walls by the artists she admired.

2007 - Student at “l’École d’Arts Appliqués Prep’Art” followed, in 2008 by “l’École d’Arts Graphiques MJM” for its photography program.

2009 - 2010 - 2011 - Disappointed by the content of the courses, Charlotte drops out and starts learning photography in the field, from professionals. She invests in her first silver camera bought second-hand and lives out of biographies, exhibitions, encounters and travels. Passionate about archaeological sites, she travels to Jordan, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Morocco, as if she were called by these places. She produces work that gives rise to her first exhibitions.

Her self-taught culture is impressive. Her search for perfection and the presentation of her work allows her to join the selective Ensad school of Paris (“École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs”).

Charlotte then works for fashion, an environment that suits her given her exigency, perfectionism, taste for fabrics. Her first publications appear in the magazines SOMETHINGS/SPACE - DAPPER DAN - TRANOÏ. She shares an artistic collaboration with Eon Amharech, architect and artistic Director of “L'Espace Galerie de L'Éclaireur”, Paris, and with Salvatore, Fashion photographer with whom she shoots. He testifies:

“Charlotte knew precisely what she wanted to capture, she immediately saw the detail and the movement, in a raw, precise and refined way. I loved her way of photographing, it was both obsessive and very spontaneous, light, intuitive and hypersensitive. She diverted beings and things from their appearance, to elegantly capture their essential. She captured what she photographed in a masterful way… she was very strong!”.

July 2011 - Meeting with Anastasios. Exposition “Scars are like flowers” at the “Office Gallery de Nicosie” under the aegis of the French National Institute and the french Ministry of Education and Culture.

2013 - 2018 - Charlotte works at Dries Van Noten, Paris.

2017 - Despite learning that her health is once again weakening, the exceptional one-day opening of La Ribaute in Barjac gives Charlotte some incredible energy. In a few hours, she organizes a voyage, carried by the joy of a meeting with a place and artist which resonated with her creativity, virtuosity aesthetics and vision.

Charlotte photographed the elegance, the aesthetics, the poetry, the pain, the accuracy, the strength or the softness that imprint on a face, a body, stones, a canvas, a wall. A magnificence of reality for eternity. This can be seen through the theme of her exhibition “Scars are like flowers” and the choice of her last professional photo. How not to evoke Anselm O'Kiefer's flowers of the resurrection, one of which (supported by a metal cylinder) was offered to her, during her significant day in Barjac and deposited on her office of study, for eternity.