Charlotte Tønder: More than bronze: stories that endure
By Signe Hansen | Photos: Charlotte Tønder
Charlotte Tønder believes that every sculpture will one day stand alone with its story. That belief demands exceptional craftsmanship – and a commitment to creating art that truly means something.
Most artists spend a lifetime refining their craft. Charlotte Tønder chose to expand hers. Today, she works full-time as an artist, exhibiting through galleries in Denmark and internationally. Already an established visual artist, she made one of the boldest decisions of her career later in life by learning and mastering the demanding craft of bronze casting. For Tønder, however, bronze is never just about the material – it is about creating stories that endure and inspire long after her sculptures leave the studio.
Artist Charlotte Tønder.
For more than 25 years, Tønder has worked with art, first as a painter alongside a career in sales and later as a gallerist and artist in her own right. Yet her debut as a bronze sculptor came relatively late in life. Rather than seeing it as a limitation, she threw herself into a new, physically demanding craft with curiosity and determination. For her, the move into bronze is also a reminder that age does not have to narrow ambition. It can open a new chapter. “Bronze has its own will,” she says. “It’s hard, dangerous and physically demanding, but that resistance is part of what attracts me.”
Although she still paints, bronze has become the centre of gravity. “Painting has a softer, more feminine process,” she says. “With bronze, it’s 1,200 degrees, fire, angle grinders, polishing, smoke and bronze dust. It’s hard on the body, and there’s something a bit badass about it as a woman.”
High-intensity tools and molten metal
Becoming a bronze artist is not straightforward. There is no formal bronze school, and aspiring artists have to learn directly from the few bronze casters willing to share their methods. Tønder’s own route into bronze began when she met an artist who became her mentor and introduced her to the demanding craft of casting. Over the past eight years, she has immersed herself in the process, first working with the traditional cire perdue, or lost-wax, technique, and now increasingly with sand casting, which gives her a more direct and spontaneous way of working.
The shift to bronze casting also led to a larger change in her artistic career. After 12 years as a gallerist for other artists and her own art, she decided to close the gallery in the centre of Copenhagen and move her studio to her home in Gentofte. “I closed the gallery business because I wanted to concentrate on being an artist and go deeper into the processes,” she explains.
Tønder’s artistic career extends far beyond her studio. Alongside numerous gallery exhibitions and international art fairs, she has completed prestigious commissions for organisations including Danske Bank’s art association and Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen. She is also the founder of Kunst i Kirke, an ambitious four-year cultural initiative that brought together 10 churches and around 80 artists with support from Gentofte Municipality’s cultural fund. The initiative brought a wide range of art into the beautiful church rooms, where spectators could view both the art and the churches from the inside.
Figures with force and humour
Tønder’s bronze figures often balance classical form with something contemporary and playful. Some works carry the body language of movement and courage; others use humour to loosen the historical weight of the material. She has made figures in sneakers, running, jumping or leaning into the unknown, using bronze to capture both physical energy and psychological states.
Tønder’s sculptures appeal to a broad audience of collectors and art lovers. Through galleries, international exhibitions and social media, her work reaches people who are drawn to its unique blend of humour, strength and storytelling.
Although bronze has become the main focus of her practice, Tønder still paints.
The lasting nature of bronze remains at the heart of Tønder’s fascination with the material. In a time shaped by speed, social media and fleeting impressions, she is drawn to a medium that can outlast both the artist and the moment. “Bronze can stand for posterity,” she says. “It’s a metal that lasts, and I have enormous respect for that. A work will one day stand alone with its story, and that obliges me to make good craftsmanship, and to want something with my art.”
For Tønder, that obligation is not heavy in a negative sense. It is what gives the work meaning. Her sculptures may carry humour, strength, vulnerability or social reflection, but beneath them is a clear wish to create something that touches people and keeps living with them.
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