Meet the Artist

 

Pleased to meet you. I am Josje: world traveler, animal lover, foodie ánd henna artist. Raised in the Netherlands, but influenced by my travel-loving father, I came into contact with other countries and cultures already at an early age.
As a big fan of little dots, lines and curls I fell in love with the detailed patterns that one encounters in Arabic architecture, the Tibetan mandalas and the wall paintings and wood carvings in Hindu temples. Therefore, in elementary school you would find drawings of these kind of patterns in my school notebooks, rather than math.

As long as I can remember I have been drawing or painting decorative patterns on anything I could lay my hands on. Also, as a teenager at some point I already brought a henna cone from one of my holiday trips, and my friends allowed me to practice on them with it. But it was not until 2014 that I discovered that henna is THE medium with which I could and wanted to explore more in depth.
Since then it went like a roller coaster, and less than a year later I was a henna artist at festivals in countries including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Ireland, and India.
In drawing and painting something was missing that prevented me from taking that up as a profession. Now I found the missing bits in henna art: contact with other people, traveling, other cultures. In henna art I can use all my creativity, and indulge these other passions, too. And with henna, also the little scientist in me, who could feel somewhat boxed in by all this drawing, can express herself. So, end of 2015, I visited a henna plantation in India, and was allowed to see the processing of this plant up close. How cool is that?! And meanwhile, my kitchen turned into my mini-laboratory where I went in search of the perfect henna mix: a little more sugar, a little less lemon juice, yet infuse a little longer ...
Welcome to the wondrous world of henna!