When we think about Art, we have to understand its origin. Art always has been an expression of its time, and especially of the spirit of the era. In ancient times artists wouldn’t just paint about themselves, trying to express only their individual condition, suffering... or whatever. Instead, art was intended as an expression of reality as they perceived it. So in the old pictures one finds a lot of information on how people felt in their time.
Nowadays artists have mostly lost this vision. But there are some, like Anette Zeltner, whose art expresses Soul states. I would call her paintings “Soul-pictures”, since they inspire you to see yourself in these states.
The way she paints has a very clear language.
To understand its real meaning you should look at her art without preconception of taste, of “I like” or “I don’t like”. You have to search for something, which is an expression of your soul. And if you look at it in this way you will find an inspiration, and a kind of guidance.
We can also say that her art is a form of mandala, or yantra. Her paintings are signs (symbols?) giving a description, and most are geometric in some aspects. Since all Soul states are connected also to geometry, when we find that geometry in ourself, for example the figure of a triangle or a circle, or the shape of a wave, it triggers something in us, and we can see this state and understand there is a message. And the message is not personal, but a universal, cosmic message. And that is why her work produces a certain vibration, a certain information.
So you can contemplate these pictures, you can live and work with them. They are a form of “working-art”, like all real Art has always implied. And that is why I really appreciate Anette’s work, and I think it’s a precious thing that a painter in our time looks in this direction.
I really suggest to people who come in contact with her art, to open up to the way she expresses things. It’s very accessible, and everyone can benefit from it.
It is a rare thing to find someone who has the gift to translate and communicate soul states. That is the most eminent and apparent quality in Anette’s art.
There is also the aspect of how she uses colours: just by looking at them, one understands how this combination of colours of shapes is what makes her Art to be Soul Art.
To read something is one thing, to experience it is another.
A photo you see in a catalogue can never really give you the vibration which comes out of a painting when you see them in reality. I am grateful too Anette Zeltner for sharing this art, and I hope that she will be known to a greater public.
Burhanuddin Herrmann on The Art of Anette Zeltner
The Art of Anette Zeltner born in Germany, is in fact both universal, almost as if it did not belong to her, and deeply personal and unique, deriving from an individual path that does not simply coincide with the stylistic maturity of an artist, but it embodies in the journey of a person who was not afraid to probe the luminous darkness where the angels reside, a non-physical territory that scares anyone but attracts the brave. Anette is one of them.