The Collection

Nathalia Edenmont is known for her elaborately staged, often provocative photographs that explore the extremes of human experience—life and death, beauty and decay, intimacy and taboo. Fusing portraiture and still life, her meticulously composed images oscillate between attraction and repulsion, drawing on the baroque tradition of vanitas while addressing contemporary issues around womanhood, sexuality, repression, and individuality. Edenmont has frequently employed natural materials—flowers, vegetables, insects, butterfly wings, and, controversially, animal remains—transforming them into lavish sculptural costumes or symbolic arrangements that provoke reflection on cycles of mortality and renewal.

Edenmont describes her practice as “painting with a photographic lens.” Her butterfly collages, composed of thousands of wings, echo the chromatic vibrancy of Kandinsky and the gestural energy of German Expressionism, while her portraits of women evoke both classical painting and contemporary fashion photography. At their core, her works confront cultural double standards and push against the boundaries of what is permissible to see.

Born in Yalta in 1970, Edenmont trained at the State Art School of Kyiv and the Simferopol State Art School before emigrating to Sweden in 1991. She later studied graphic design at Forsbergs Skola in Stockholm, where she began to experiment seriously with photography. Since then, she has exhibited widely across Europe and the United States, including solo shows in London, New York, Berlin, and Moscow. Her work is held in the collections of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Pérez Art Museum, Miami; and the Moscow House of Photography, among others. In 2014, Swedish public television produced a feature-length documentary about her life and art.