By Nurten Kum
Read the Turkish original ↗
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.
“Live every day like life itself, and live it with grace. The sun we see is here for us.”
On March 29, 2014, the world of art lost one of its most creative and productive artists, Gönül Sen-Menzel.
The Cologne-based painter, who pursued her work with great passion and called her colorful, vibrant art studio her world, suddenly parted from those who loved her – even though she still had a great many goals and tasks ahead of her. She leaves behind a large number of planned exhibitions, projects and works.
Gönül Sen-Menzel painted at every opportunity; she exhibited constantly, created new art techniques along the way and loved to reinvent herself again and again. She let no time in the world pass without devoting herself to art. Art surrounded her constantly. Gönül Sen-Menzel, who once said that no work invested in art is wasted time and that art is the result of long thought and a continuous act, also lived by this way of thinking. Painting was her philosophy of life. And then, quite suddenly, she left us – in her colorful studio, of all places.
Over the years, Gönül Sen-Menzel created a nature of her own in her studio. In the color worlds and techniques of thousands of works, one can observe her philosophy of life and her traces. When she painted, Gönül Sen-Menzel wandered into another dimension. It was almost as if you could see her floating above the clouds. When it came to art, she even forgot her years of chronic, severe back pain. In her studio she used colors, integrated shining full moons and moonlight into her pictures, painted clear and abstract forms of human bodies, and let herself be transported into a new world among paint cans and canvases, accompanied by classical music. In these surroundings, the reality and effect of the outside world changed and turned into art. Toward all her friends, Gönül Sen-Menzel was generous and giving.
With her inexhaustible energy she painted dancing people and at the same time took away people’s fear of art and encouraged them to paint, even those who doubted their abilities. She liked to share. She also painted together with her artist friends and colleagues and exhibited in group shows. She was full of love and filled with life. In her art there was no place for fanaticism, regression, oppression and violence. Now and then she was sensitive and fragile in the face of negativity. At such times she found her well-being again in the world of colors, art, literature and music.
As an artist she was unconventional and unique. She was always open to the new, to diversity, creativity and humor. These traces could be found in every way in all her works. Her works also depicted the everyday, for example. What she experienced, felt and thought in a day, she expressed not only in words but told us through her colors and pictures. In this way she created a new kind of language within art.
Her studio was heated with a large stove. On some days when she was expecting visitors, she heated it hours in advance with excitement and joy. On the stove she occasionally cooked chicken soup for her guests; sometimes there was homemade bread and gözleme (thin Turkish flatbread). On other days she surprised us with French dishes or food from other cultures and countries. With classical music, countless color panels, splendid colors, happy faces, conversations about art and her original dishes, among other things, her studio was an expansion of many forms. When we left the studio, we felt our soul calmed and our heart lightened. We took the colors with us and carried them out in our soul and body. Gönül Sen-Menzel unexpectedly left the people who loved her and her colorful art studio, which she called her world.
Acquaintances, relatives, those who loved her and close friends will bid her farewell into eternity on April 12 at 1 p.m. at Gönül Sen-Menzel’s studio at Volkhovener Weg 209–211, 50765 Cologne. Remember Gönül Sen-Menzel like life itself, and live it with grace. “The sun we see is here for us,” she once said. Whether the day we accompany her into eternity will also be a sunny day, I do not know. But the enchanting colors that Gönül Sen-Menzel gave to those around her for years will appear there like a rainbow. That I know.
A Life Full of Art
The painter Gönül Şen-Menzel was born in Diyarbakır in 1949. Because of her father’s transfers, she said, she moved from city to city across Turkey from childhood; from an early age her passion was drawing, art and color. In Turkey she studied art education and worked as an art teacher. From 1981 she lived in Cologne. Şen-Menzel, who studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, showed her pictures in numerous exhibitions at home and abroad.
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 formed with artist friends on the basis of exchange, art criticism and solidarity, she realized numerous joint projects and group exhibitions. In Cologne she worked as an art teacher. 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 on the development of art in Turkey; its common thread was the obstacles standing in the way of the free development of art and creativity. She also gave painting courses at Paderborn University. The painter, who continued her work with great intensity in her own studio in Cologne-Chorweiler, passed away on March 29, 2014.
The obituary appeared in the bilingual newspaper Yeni Hayat / Neues Leben, issue of April 11–24, 2014, p. 9 (“Kadın” section). The main text is translated from the German version printed in Neues Leben; the box “A Life Full of Art” appeared only in Turkish and was translated for senmenzel.com.
