Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987) is an artist and photographer whose work examines the social and emotional dimensions of imagery and hyper-visibility, with a focus on the body.His practice spans photography, video, fashion and generative AI.He makes images with AI programs such as Midjourney and DALL·E.Born in Chicago, he lives and works in Brooklyn.
Engman began taking pictures while studying Japanese and Korean studies at the University of Oxford. His photographs have appeared in The New Yorker and Vogue, and in campaigns for Prada and Hermès.He has also worked as art director of the sustainable fashion brand Collina Strada.His books include MOM (Edition Patrick Frey, 2020), I Care a Lotta, I Wear Collina Strada (Rizzoli, 2023) and Hello Chaos, a Love Story (SPBH and Mack Books, 2024).
In April 2023 Engman was one of ten photographic artists curated by Roope Rainisto for Post Photography Perspectives, each launching a collection of 100 artworks.He describes the AI image generators he used for Funhouse Mirror as making images that reflect the codes of visual culture “like a funhouse mirror”.In 2023 he produced Misunderstandings (or Life on the Island), a series of 10 artworks for Frieze magazine.,He has said the generators' misunderstanding of bodies and space felt like an analog for living in a city “as chaotic as it is cliche”.The 2024 photobook Cursed draws mainly on Midjourney images, with a few made using his custom models or his own photographs. Engman has said he became excited by the idea that one could be “nostalgic for the present”.
In 2024 his work was included in the group exhibition “Apple of Discord” at Louise Alexander Gallery in Porto Cervo.During a residency at La Becque in 2025, he researched the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of generative AI imagery in conjunction with the Soft Photography research program at ECAL.
