Gönül Sen-Menzel: Cheerfulness and Joy in “Gönül’s World”

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Bringing cheerfulness and joy into the dreariest season – that is what the new show at the Schwarzbach Galerie sets out to do.

While it is gray and icy outside, colorful paintings by Gönül Sen-Menzel glow in the gallery. “I am an observer and a collector,” says the Turkish-born artist. She shows her impressions of landscapes, people and nature – always in the most intense colors.

Mixed into one another in strong contrasts, fields of color emerge that leave viewers room for their own exploration. What is a bay to one person may be a landscape with fields to another. Sen-Menzel uses intense red, yellow, blue and green. The pictures appear abstract. And yet: “This is not abstract; these are all my trees, my landscapes, my world.” So the title of the show could not have been chosen more aptly: “Gönül’s World”.

The artist shows 70 pictures: “I photograph with my eyes”

Yet the intention behind the works is not quite so cheerful: “I paint so big and colorful as a scream against the oppression of women in my country.” Being exhibited as a foreign artist in Germany is her political struggle. This is how she wants to make herself heard.

70 pictures are on show for this purpose. The degree of abstraction varies. While one landscape consists only of rough fields of color, a house or a street lamp is visible in another. “I photograph with my eyes,” says Sen-Menzel. What she paints comes from her memory. The brushwork is mostly rough and dynamic. Here and there, drops seem to be scattered randomly across the canvas. And yet the artist “always goes into the studio with a concept”. There she listens to music, currently jazz, and paints to its movements and rhythm. All the pictures have one thing in common – a circle: “That is the sun. The sun is energy.”

The works can be seen until March 15 at Schwarzbach 174 – Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 2 to 7 p.m.

Original caption: Gönül Sen-Menzel brings color into the Schwarzbach Galerie.