The biography of the painter Sieglinde Metzler
My life began on April 30, 1958 in a small German village in Lusatia. Surrounded by nature and lots of freedom, I had a very happy first few years. Dressed up as a princess, herding geese, with lots of animals and the traditions of Sorbian culture.
When I was able to read, I loved fairy tale books and adventure trips, because I was always at home in my dream world. During my 10 years at school, I was interested in music, painting, literature and sport.
I started drawing, portraying the teachers and writing poems.
This did not go unnoticed by my art teacher. He was the one who encouraged me and exhibited two of my paintings in the museum of the district town of Hoyerswerda. A self-portrait and a landscape painting.
How proud I was that they were on display there for weeks. This teacher was the first person to take a serious interest in my painting.
He said at the time that I had a very good sense of color.
As I got older, I was often able to go to the art city of Dresden. I used my pocket money to pay for the bus trips and entrance fees.
I was in my own world in the Old Masters Picture Gallery in the Dresden Zwinger. I could look at the paintings for hours and dream myself back to the Middle Ages.
From then on, I was fascinated by paintings and art. I was interested in every style, without painting myself.
In the years that followed, life was characterized by the normal rhythm of life. Marriage, child, job.
It wasn't until I was 64 years old that I had this one important moment. What else did I want to achieve in life? What would make me happy?
I had already experienced so much in my life
I had overcome serious illnesses,
coped with losses and enjoyed professional success.
As I got older, I was often able to go to the art city of Dresden. I used my pocket money to pay for the bus trips and entrance fees.
I was in my own world in the Old Masters Picture Gallery in the Dresden Zwinger. I could look at the paintings for hours and dream myself back to the Middle Ages.
From then on, I was fascinated by paintings and art. I was interested in every style, without painting myself.
In the years that followed, life was characterized by the normal rhythm of life. Marriage, child, job.
It wasn't until I was 64 years old that I had this one important moment. What else did I want to achieve in life? What would make me happy?
I had already experienced so much in my life
I had overcome serious illnesses,
coped with losses and enjoyed professional success.
So I sat in my beautiful home on a cold, dull February day in 2023 and had the inner feeling that the time had finally come to pick up the paintbrush. So I painted a beautiful big sun for myself and others over 2 days and published it in Tiktok.
I just wanted the sun to find a home with me and bring a smile to other people's faces. A canvas measuring 1.20 x 0.90 m. With bright acrylic colors in yellow, orange, red and lots of glitter.
The paintbrush began its own dance with me to classical music. That was the first time I felt the happiness and deep emotion of creating.
It was a moment of inner peace and happiness that flowed back to me from the painting. My heart went into the painting and came back to me from the painting.
That was the birth of my painting. Suddenly the sun was not only in the picture but in my house and in my life. The picture was given a place where I could see it all the time. Every day when I looked at it, it gave me something positive in return. It now hangs with my good friends and neighbors and they feel the same way. I see it as a gift to me.
The saying: giving makes you happier than receiving is one of these experiences and my grandmother set an example for me. She was a very happy person, how could I live without painting at all, why so late? I don't know.
From that day on, I felt that it was my inner calling. It makes me happy. I can experience everything in the pictures. I see the colors in myself and want to bring them into the picture. A deep inner connection comes with every picture during the painting process.
Sometimes immediately and sometimes in the process. How many nights have I forgotten the time... with the brush united with my imagination, immersed in my fiction.
The paintings are almost always unplanned and take twists and turns that I don't know beforehand. They connect with my soul during the painting process. I feel the picture in the depths of my heart.
I experience each theme as an adventure.
I have to coax something out of the picture until it reveals its secret to me. Always with the courage to lose what has already been created with the next stroke. Because of this, I work obsessively on a picture until my mind says I can't do any better. In the meantime, many paintings have been created and all of them have a place in my heart.
I recognize a lot from my experiences.
Thus, the feeling of depression is painted on paper, the emotions in a big city, the loss of a great love, and the hurt experienced many years ago.
But always present is the love for life.
She is the one who makes me paint. It is what I want to do in the remaining part of my life.
This love will carry me, no matter where and what happens because of it.
In the best case, my painting brings joy to people, and as long as there are colors, they will be in my life.
My dream is to enrich the world with it and
to give back the love I feel within me to the world in the form of my paintings.
Perhaps I had to mature internally first.
And here I am again,
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