Colours are the letters with which I write

by Margaret Perkuhn, Lauterbacher Anzeiger

The bright colours on the old smudged-looking glass reflect strength, cou-rage, honesty, genuineness and also some of the pride of the artist Gisela Maria Wittmer. The zest for life can be sensed by any visitor entering the exhibition rooms of the Hohhaus Museum in Lauterbach. A unique kind of "Paintings behind Glass" can be seen here. In the series shown, abstract paintings play a major role but impressions, portraits, small landscapes and flower compositions are also on display.

Gisela Maria Wittmer is ready and waiting restlessly. "The crates are pakked. l am going out into the world with pictures which are my dreams!" Her works are well known in the galleries at the Airport Rhein-Main, in Ibiza, in Sao Paulo Brazil, in the cultural center "Englische Kirche" Bad Homburg and the Friedenstein Castle in Gotha.........

She was called "Painter of Light" in a culture film shown by NTV television in Ibiza. "The colours are the letters with which I write." The spirited artist uses colours to get her message across that "our inner values play the greatest part in our lives." Confrontations with transience and death have resulted in creative pressures the results of which can be seen in her latest episode "Zaubertrunken" presented by the artist who was raised in Lauterbach.  By the age of eleven Gisela Maria Wittmer had already read the books on her parents' shelves, and she was receiving intensive painting lessons by Professor Struppe at the Alexander von Humbold-Grammar School for quite a number of years. She was brilliant in German and Music but a complete disaster in Mathematics. She experienced triumphs on the sports grounds and remembers being carried around on the shoulders of the final year students.

"I have lived out all my talents passionately. I have always fought against a thousand powers and done whatever I enjoy doing!" But Gisela Maria Wittmer is grateful for her talents. She shows total dedication, industriousness, energy and stamina, partly as a result of her strict and consequent upbringing.

The sudden illness of her mother with whom she had always had an extremely strong artistic bond came as a shock to Gisela Maria Wittmer. However, she managed to overcome this setback, and as her mother can no longer talk, the daughter now uses her paintings to reminisce about the long conversations she held with her mother discussing the theatre, opera and literature. These conversations are recorded forever in this series.

For months she got up at five fifteen in the morning and worked day and night like somebody possessed. The race against the fear of separation, against the unchangeable, the urge towards immortality spurs her on in her creativity. In her pulsating works of shimmering colour pigments Gisela Maria Wittmer shows a leaning towards the aesthetic moment, and perfection but also towards complete spontaneity as can be seen in her unusual colour symphonies. She has become known for her assertiveness, skill and strength of character. There are no sponsors and no protectors. Looking for material happiness only? " Material things may only bring temporary happiness but no true fulfillment." It is inner freedom, which counts more for Gisela Wittmer. In her work as a painter she feels protected, she believes in herself and her pictures. Her latest work is called "Urquell". Defined through colour only, it finds its shape in itself. In this sense the religious artist regards life. "Submerged in generations which will meet again somewhere, sometime in the blueness of space".

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