In 2019, Karlijn van Beurden (1997) graduated from the art academy St. Joost in Breda, where she achieved her bachelor's degree in photography.

From childhood onwards art has played a big role in her life. Paintings from the Renaissance, the Baroque and Romanticism are woven into her.

Karlijn investigates what metaphors from art history can mean in the present. ‘‘Without knowledge of the classics, painting can never come to perfection. An artist must be filled with it.’’, said Peter Paul Rubens.

In art academy Karlijn learned to express this ambition for pictorial art from the 17th and 18th century. With that, the naked body became a very important theme in her work.

But she doesn’t just want to make ‘nice nudes.’ For Karlijn the naked body can say and mean many different things. For example: vulnerability, honesty, maturity, a reference to the past or a sacrifice for the present. Karlijn would like to devote her entire body to the latter. She would like to put her ‘reputation’, body, self-image, insecurity and vulnerability into this, so that others experience support from her work.