· Biography

justine lotus, previously known as Petz Scholtus, was born in Luxembourg in 1980. From the family farm she went to London to study art and design at Camberwell School of Arts and at Goldsmiths College. From London she moved to Barcelona in 2004, where she enjoyed working as a sustainable designer and entrepreneur for many years.

Early on she was invited to America Sanchez’ Club del Dibujo where her passion for drawing was reignited. She started to dedicate more and more time to drawing, but it wasn’t until she entered Cesar Manrique’s museum workshop in Lanzarote in 2018 that it struck her: painting is what she is meant to be doing.

In 2020, thanks to a pandemic and an ill body, Scholtus underwent a kind of personal and professional metamorphosis. A name change gave her the necessary energy to shed old beliefs and embrace a new found liberation and empowerment to live life as an artist and massage therapist.

lotus currently has her workshop in Barcelona, where she mostly works with Chinese ink and paper. Her work is influenced by different forms of meditation and the study of sumi-e (Chinese ink wash painting) under the guidance of Maria Eugenia Manrique. Becoming a student of Muditosan to learn the Essence of Touch, a Conscious Touch massage technique based on Osho’s teachings, is further shifting her work and finally opened the door to the abstract.

Some of lotus’ current areas of painted work are: abstract automatic drawing, capture feelings that occur when taking energy altering substances or listening to music; nipple art with the aim to support various areas of feminism; a visualisation and recording of her monthly blood; experiments with ink and rain; in memoriams.

She loves to receive guests at her workshop in Barcelona as well as connect with people through the art of Conscious Touch & Reiki massages.