Charlotte Fonne

Fonne’s artistic practice is rooted in a long career in visual storytelling. Trained as a film and documentary editor in Paris, she has mastered the art of association and condensation. What gains significance through cinematic montage – layering, rhythm, resonance – she translates into her visual language. She uses digital tools to create complex compositions that do not document, but evoke: visual diaries, collages of time and space, of memory and emotion.

In her series The Structural Series, Fonne turns her gaze to the iconic Art Deco hotels of Miami Beach. These buildings are, for her, more than architectural forms – they are visual narratives that reach beyond what is immediately visible: silent witnesses to a glamorous past, woven into the shimmering pulse of the present. Their façades – with clean lines, geometric patterns, and pastel tones – fuse structural stillness with the city’s kinetic life: beachgoers, swaying palms, flickering light. These works speak not just of places, but of moments suspended in time.

Wanderlust, observation, and reflection shaped her early years and continue to inform her work. The gaze she offers is a homage to travel – and to being present in the moment.

She initially built her career in Paris as a senior film editor. In 2012, she expanded her horizons and moved to Miami, where she freelanced as a documentary editor. Charlotte then established her own production company, Nouvelle Vague Productions, in 2021, which she manages until June 2024. 

Charlotte’s love for photography and travel, combined with her editing background, inspired her to develop a unique multilayer technique that transforms her travel photos into artwork. Her creations have been exhibited internationally, including at Aqua Art Miami, LoosenArt in Rome, Women in Art online, Praxis Photo Arts Center in Minneapolis and Spectrum Art Miami.  

Looking forward, Charlotte is committed to advancing her artistic practice, continually innovating within her craft, and sharing her visual narratives with a growing global audience.  

When it comes to capturing images, I find the material to create my art absolutely everywhere. But in the creation process, my art comes from my thoughts, my memories, and my mind.

I travel the world or just go around my hometown of Miami, and I photograph anything that catches my eye. From landscapes, cityscapes, monuments, and buildings to details, people, or just a specific light or color… anything that resonates with me or leaves an impact on me. It’s my way of documenting life and keeping memories alive so I can revisit them whenever I want. When I am back home, I remember the ambiance of the places I’ve been, find the images that best reflect what I have in mind, and begin the post-production work by layering my photographs. I create until I get the perfect result that truly matches my memory of that place, like a little movie of that time, where all the scenes are blended together in a single image.

I have so many favorites that I can’t pick just one! Among the books I’ve read recently, I’d say Le Soleil des Scorta (The Scortas’ Sun) by Laurent Gaudé, Danser au bord de l’abîme by Grégoire Delacourt, and the Blackwater series by Michael McDowell.

I would love to have a coffee with Claude Monet, the French Impressionist painter, and I think I would have many questions to ask and subjects to talk about with him. I would ask him how the idea of painting nature the way he perceived it, instead of trying to represent the exact reality, came to his mind. I would ask him to tell me how it was to collaborate with other artists in the 19th century, how they came together to create the “Salon of the Refused” (Salon des Refusés in French), and how it felt to have initiated one of the most famous art revolutions.

I got into photography when I was 16. I took a reflex film camera with me on a trip to Thailand, and I had so much fun with it that, since then, I’ve never stopped! It was later, while studying cinema and visual arts at university, that a particularly insightful professor made me fall in love with art history. His teachings about art's evolution throughout the centuries captivated me, and the groundbreaking styles of Impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism inspired me to see reality from a whole new perspective.

It depends; most of the time, it’s a long journey. Once I’ve captured the photographs to work with, I start the editing process to create. It can take anywhere from one week to several months to reach the final product. I usually work on two or three artworks at the same time since I need to step away, let them rest, and come back with fresh eyes to improve them. With the layering process, the possibilities are endless, and being quite a perfectionist, it always takes me a long time to reach the final version that is exactly what I have in mind.

I couldn’t be an artist without the strong support and encouragement of my family, my partner, and my close friends. They are my first fans; they always have good advice to give me; they are patient enough to help me choose between several variations of the same artwork (even though I constantly go with the one I prefer); and most importantly, they truly believe in me, which gives me so much strength and happiness to start my day every day.

I would go back to July 20th, 1969, to witness the first moon landing live, and I would go to meet my mom since I know where she was that day to share the moment with her (though I wouldn’t tell her I’m her daughter, as I wasn’t born yet).

Travel, I want to see the world! Exploring new places and experiencing different cultures inspire me. Every trip I take is always exciting; it fills me with so much joy to be on an adventure and let my eyes discover new things.

I am constantly working on new artwork for my different series. I have plenty of images on my hard drives and in my mind that need to become reality. Right now, I’m focused on expanding my Structural Series, which explores the art deco hotels in Miami Beach.