Marlis Jermutus, also known simply as Ma (short for Malerin, the German word for painter), was born in the West German town of Wesel in 1942. She began her professional career as an artist in 1970. Marlis began an artistic journey shared by her contemporaries, German artists Rigo and her neighbor in the Neiderrhein region, Joseph Beuys. These artists chose to transform the experience of the suffering and oppression of war through the healing freedom of artistic expression. Beuys believed there was a "science of freedom" in art. Marlis sought that science through a combination of Eastern art an...