Justine Tjallinks (b.1984) is an autodidact visual artist. She lives and works in The Hague, The Netherlands.
She started her career in fashion as Art-Director for leading fashion titles in the Netherlands. After years working with photography as a visual language, she realised that the fashion world and its ideals of human beauty had become creatively limiting for her. In 2014, at the age of 30, she decides to quit her position to become an artist
Her artworks are inspired by various master painters, from Golden Age to Magic Realism. This influence lies in the refined color palettes and the dramatic use of light. Even though her admiration of the past, her work is contemporary.
Above all, Justine is a portraitist with a focus on the extraordinary beauty in human. She seeks to capture the singularity of the ones she portrays and questions the traditional codes of beauty by upsetting the aesthetic standards of contemporary society.
According to philosopher George Canguilhem, norms and behavioural codes are not biological but rather the result of the relationship between human beings and their environment. Perhaps, through an aesthetic revolution that only art can carry, we can change people’s gaze.