Charlotta Östlund

Charlotta Östlund (b. 1973) gathers plants and dries them to serve as her raw material. She then bends the fragile stalks into infinitely delicate sculptures. Sometimes Östlund embellishes the brittle, snail-eaten leaves with petals, reinforcing the structure of her artworks with underpinned wire. Her sculptures are like poems, interweaving nature’s ceaseless cycle with a subtle lyrical sensibility.

 

Östlund’s time-consuming, laborious technique requires extreme precision and concentration, offering a natural vehicle for the study of human existence. Being organic, her materials are never static; they are perpetually in the midst of a gradual process of metamorphosis, never intended to last forever. The frailty and transient nature of human existence is one of Östlund’s key themes.

 

Östlund was born and educated in Sweden. She began her career as a ceramic artist. She graduated from the Stockholm University of Arts, Crafts, and Design in 2000. Östlund’s work is represented in collections including the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and Helsinki Art Museum HAM. The artist lives and works in Helsinki.