A short compendium of questions often put to me, about spiritual art, the meditative pastel technique, soul images, the books, exhibitions and how to acquire a work.
Sylvia Wolff is a German artist of contemporary spiritual art, based in Wandlitz near Berlin. She works primarily as a painter of meditative pastels and as an author of books and meditative poetry on themes of stillness, longing and inner transformation.
Her work is contemporary spiritual painting: soul images made for inner contemplation. The paintings return repeatedly to archetypal and biblical motifs, angels, houses of the soul, descending lights, rendered as living questions about presence, light and stillness rather than fixed iconography.
Sylvia Wolff paints with pastel chalk, laid directly by hand onto honeycomb panels prepared as cardboard. The pigment is built up in many layers and fixed with lacquer varnishes, so the finished surface carries depth and no longer requires glass.
Pastel is an elemental medium – close to pigment, matte and quiet. It suits the meditative character of her spiritual art, allowing colour to be mixed at the moment of application and giving biblical motifs a tactile, almost breath-like presence.
Yes. Pastel paintings, smaller works from the Edition Kleine Pastelle, Hausaltäre and books can be enquired after directly. Please write through the contact page; each enquiry is answered personally.
Works by Sylvia Wolff have been shown in churches, abbeys and galleries across Germany – among them St. Nikolai Cottbus, the Abtei St. Hildegard, the Nikolaikirche in Görlitz and the Rheingauer Dom – as well as in private collections.
Occasionally, yes – for instance a baptismal verse translated into imagery, or a biblical passage made for a specific occasion or space. Very personal works emerge from such conversations.
Her publications include „Ankunft im Leben", „Ankunft im wahren Leben" and a volume of meditative poetry. Image and language depend on each other in her practice; the books are a natural companion to the paintings.
The Hausaltäre are small meditative picture objects developed for one of her exhibitions, personal places of strength for a quiet retreat at home: a painting sits behind glass, and behind it a hinged door opens onto a hollow that can hold a note, a photograph or another small keepsake. They are crafted by a carpenter in various sizes.
Through the contact page, by email to kontakt@sylvia-wolff.de, or by telephone. Every message is welcome – about exhibitions, acquisitions, or simply out of interest in the work.
Every message is welcome – about the work, a specific painting, or an exhibition.