José Lubbers was born in Ede, the Netherlands in 1941. She has held a fascination for shapes and colours since childhood. After graduating from the College of Social Work, José concentrated her efforts on painting. She has taken many years of lessons from various experienced painters including the now famous Karel Sirag.

After mastering the techniques of oil and water colour painting, she began to experiment with other materials such as acrylic paints, charcoal, glues, paper etc. as stand alone materials or in varying combinations. Over time - in addition to her purely figurative work inspired largely by Dutch river and polder landscapes - the "figurative-abstract" style evolved which one sees in much of her work today. Here José fuses recognizable elements - such as birds, faces and vases - in an abstract fantasy surrounding.

The colour is always the foundation that she builds on in her paintings - elaborating the structure towards a result that communicates a perfect balance between colour and form.

In addition to the Dutch landscape, an important source of inspiration for José are the old Ottoman and Hellenic cultures - influences which she absorbed while studying Turkisch (1981-1988) and during visits to Turkey and Greece.