An exhibition combating negative self-image in a square in Copenhagen has been closed down by police.

Photographer Mathilde Grafström snaps women who don’t have traditional model looks, for a photo series called Female Beauty.

“I take my photos to show young women that they are more beautiful than they think. I show the woman that she is beautiful, and that way I can help her to accept herself," she told Denmark's TV2.

Police have denied permission for her photos to be displayed in Copenhagen’s Nytorv square, with Grafström filing a complaint against them and condemning their view of the female body as “offensive”.

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“It's totally reprehensible. Total suppression of my art,” she said. “I don't understand that my pictures can be offensive. They show something you see when you change clothes at a swimming pool.”

Grafström drew attention to an advert featuring naked breasts for a plastic surgery clinic being run on the side of Copenhagen buses which has not been taken down.

"Nygart’s [the surgery’s] breasts are plastic. My photos are an aesthetic expression. It is shocking that my pictures are obscene, while advertising is not," she added.

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Grafström’s work with nudes stems from her own insecurities about her body.

"I love to shoot my models naked. But sometimes it can be difficult because I also fight with my own problems; I think my hips and breasts are to small,” she writes on her website.

“Sometimes when my boyfriend are looking at my body, I think that I'm unattractive. But then I can see that it's all the negative thoughts about my body that makes me less beautiful and unfree.”