Close to people | Stories from Bethel
Art is her way to express herself
A blend of colour, wood and a hint of coffee fills the small studio with a spicy fragrance. The parquet floor is covered with non-woven painting material. Colourful acrylic is layered on the coarse, grey fabric and the gouache paints fibres in red and blue. Monika Wohlfahrt dips a sponge in bright yellow liquid and works on her work. She rubs and circles over the surface. She scrapes and scratches with her fingers until older, underlying colour emerges. In this way, she creates pictures that are multi-layered - just like the 58-year-old Bethel employee herself.
She has been loyal to her employer for almost 40 years. Monika Wohlfahrt? Maybe you can only do something social with this surname? In her case, it was training to become a social environment educator. For a long time, Monika Wohlfahrt supported people with very severe disabilities at the former Haus Patmos. Then she switched to psychiatry. It was exciting to work on a closed ward in Gilead IV, changing shifts. "But at some point I was burnt out and became ill," she says. Painting saved her.
"I used to pour out all my anger, all my emotions. Today, I've lost a bit of my vigour. I can be a little more tender now, softer," she is convinced. And you can see that in her face. Her face is pure. Angular. Determined. But there is also a spontaneous, bubbling laugh and everything becomes lighter. Her mostly large-format works become more colourful, less heavy in the truest sense of the word, because the thickness of the layers of paint has been reduced.
While she works spontaneously and informally in the studio, experimenting with techniques, and chance also plays a major role, her work at Bethel is well organised. After her illness, she retrained and worked as a secretary at the Evangelical hospital Bethel - now as assistant to the scientific director Prof Dr Fritz Mertzlufft. "I'm glad that I have such a secure foothold. Bethel gives me financial independence," emphasises Monika Wohlfahrt. All her earnings go into art. Rent for the studio. Colours. Canvases. She is proud to have her own gallery owner in the historic centre of Bielefeld. And she can also look back on many an exhibition.
But above all, the 58-year-old is looking ahead. She still has a lot planned. Her small studio in the Brackwede district of Bielefeld is becoming too small. Next year, she will move to larger premises. She is planning to give painting courses. When she was young, she was often accused of being too fast, too loud and too wild. "Girls aren't like that!" Perhaps her life would have been different without the role expectations. But perhaps it has also given her strength, which she can now use to shape her future and art dynamically and freely.
This story simply told
Art is very important to Monika Wohlfahrt. She uses a lot of colour for her large paintings. She has been working at Bethel for around 40 years. She often goes to her studio after work. It does her good. You can sense anger or happiness in her works. Her paintings have often been exhibited in galleries.
