Gönül Sen-Menzel: A Colorful Painter – Obituary in Evrensel Kültür

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This article was published in Turkish. The original text, with a German translation, opens in a new tab in the German section of this website.

Did you know the painter Gönül Şen Menzel? The independent, creative artist who painted pictures full of rainbow colors and was in a hurry to pass on every color of nature – not only to the canvas but also to the people around her?

Born in 1949, Gönül Şen Menzel had been passionately devoted to drawing, art and color since childhood. As a child and teenager she lived in 28 different cities because of her father’s transfers. In Turkey she studied art education and worked as an art teacher. In 1981 she came to Germany. In Cologne she also worked on social projects. Şen-Menzel, who studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, exhibited in numerous exhibitions in Germany and several other countries. She also created performances that combined her painting with other art forms, with dance and music. With the artists’ groups KölTür and Bunte Eule, which she founded with artist friends on the basis of exchange, art criticism and solidarity, she took part in many joint projects and organized group exhibitions with colleagues. She worked as an art teacher in Cologne until her retirement. Passionately devoted to literature, Şen-Menzel also wrote stories and children’s books. Numerous bilingual Turkish-German books, which she illustrated herself, were published by Anadolu Verlag. In recent years she began a doctorate at Paderborn University. Her topic was the development of art in Turkey; the obstacles to the free development of art and creativity formed the common thread of her work. She also gave painting courses at Paderborn University. She continued her work with great intensity in her own studio in Cologne-Chorweiler.

On March 29, 2014, the art world lost in Gönül Şen-Menzel a productive, creative and independent artist. In her colorful studio, which she loved dearly, where she worked passionately and which she called her temple, Gönül Şen Menzel suddenly took leave of the people who loved her … Suddenly … leaving behind questions, unspoken words and unfinished paintings …

And she still had so many plans. Her calendar was full of exhibitions, projects and appointments. At every opportunity she painted, opened exhibitions, taught painting, learned new artistic techniques and reinvented herself again and again. In early May she was going to spend a week at the International Culture and Art Days in Fethiye, leading workshops with students and giving live performances in the streets of Fethiye. She was full of anticipation and happy. For her, painting was a way of life and a way of being. Life was art, and art was life for her …

Over the years, Gönül Şen Menzel had managed to fit a whole world into her studio. In her thousands of colorful works, created in the most varied techniques, one finds the traces of her life and her view of the world.

When painting, Şen Menzel virtually entered another dimension. She gave herself over entirely to the magic of color. She knew no tiredness; she never paid attention to the chronic, severe back pain she had suffered from for years. In her studio you felt as if you were on another planet entirely: in the midst of an intoxication of color, of the glowing round full moons she set in her pictures, of moonlight, of blurred, dynamic and colorful human silhouettes, among paint boxes and canvases, accompanied by classical music. The outside world lost its reality, and in this place everything became art.

To the artist friends who came to her studio, Gönül Şen Menzel opened her world with great generosity. With her inexhaustible energy and her performances, she painted as if she were dancing, while encouraging friends and students who did not trust themselves to paint or believed they had no talent for it … When painting, she was sometimes childlike and mischievous. She was full of love and full of life. Her positive energy infected everyone around her … She liked to share and competed with no one. She worked together with artist friends and opened group exhibitions … She was a thoroughly free spirit. Neither in her art nor in her private life was there room for narrow-mindedness, backwardness, oppression and violence. It pained her especially that art in Turkey, where she was born, grew up and spent her youth, is not appreciated as it deserves, and that art and artists are met with indifference … She was sensitive and vulnerable in the face of adversity. At such times she took refuge again in her colorful world, in her art, in literature and music … She was an extraordinary, independent artist, open to the new, to difference, to creativity and humor. The traces of this can be found in her pictures, in her words, in her books and in every object in her studio.

She held open days in her studio. For art lovers and friends, her door was always open anyway. In winter a large stove heated the studio. On days when guests were coming, she said, she drove there early to heat the studio. On the stove she sometimes cooked tarhana soup for her guests; sometimes there was homemade bread or gözleme. On another day she surprised her friends with French, Belgian or some other country’s cuisine. Anyone who wanted could go into the kitchen and pour themselves tea, and when the water in the samovar ran out, they refilled it. With classical music, countless pictures, an intoxication of colors, happy faces, conversations about art and her special hospitality, Gönül Şen Menzel’s studio was the sum of many things one longs for. When you left her studio, you felt your soul had recovered and your body had become lighter. You took the colors with you in body and soul … Not only as an artist but also through her modesty and humanity, Gönül Şen Menzel was special. Each time, she managed to paint something of her colorful world into the soul of everyone who met her and took an interest in her art, with invisible brushstrokes …

On April 12, 2014, the people who loved her, her friends and fellow artists came to her studio – this time to say goodbye to her. On a radiant spring day, Gönül Şen Menzel was bid farewell into eternity with colors, words and music … What remains is a feeling of sadness, rainbows, hope and life. Just like in her little poem for children: The sun came out from between the clouds / The butterfly thought / Spring is here / And flew and flew …

The article appeared in Evrensel Kültür, a monthly magazine for culture, art and literature, No. 269, May 2014, pp. 41–42. Translated from Turkish for senmenzel.com.