About Marie-José

‘Marie-José is working and living in Deventer, the Netherlands, Lago di Orta, Italy and Shanghai, China. Her mission is to bring beauty into her life and her work as painter and graphic designer. As well as being an artist in a direct sense, she is also an artist of life and someone who enjoys life.
Her source of inspiration is nature, in particular the bison. Her work is bright, pure and on the level: strong lines and intense colours, big gestures and plenty of movement. But if you look carefully you will see subtle refinement and an eye for detail. You cannot avoid the challenge posed by her work. This is true not only for the scope of her paintings, but
also for the emotion and enthusiasm that splash forth from them.’

Jantine Sijbring
Senior Organisation Adviser, Deventer



‘Hi, I am Ji Yeon Ihn, daughter of Mi Jung! I really would like to meet you someday, if my mom lets me. I just love your bisons! My mom let me choose one from three bison drawings which Aunt Rana brought, so I looked into them deeply. One was too fat, so I thought: "hm.... I don't think I can really make him go on a diet...". So I looked in the other ones. The second one looked furious. I thought: "hm.... I think this bison might attack me before I tame it." But the last one looked very pleasant. So I chose that one. And I am pretty sure that the number is... 22. My mom said I can have that bison if I pay for it. Now since it is REALLY mine, I love it even more.
I placed it on my shelf so I can take a look if it is being nice to my books everyday. If it is snorting and trying to attack the innocent books, I yell "NO!" and it will stop. Thank goodness that I bought a tame one. Or it must have been very hard to stop it.
I hope I can save more money to buy another bison. Just to make sure that number 22 isn't bored. To have a friend to talk to.’

Ji Yeon Ihn (11 years)
Shanghai