Werner Schulz-Mönkeberg

The fantastic architecture of Werner Schulz Mönkeberg

He operates painting as a way of keeping a journal, an illustrated life’s confession, phrased in pictures. The main target of the artistic endeavor of the artist Werner Schulz- Mönkeberg, born in Frankfurt (Germany) and now living in Vienna (Austria), is to put life into soulless objects. In his picture meditations a simplified representation of the depiction prevails over the equally abstract ornamental emblematic. Ever changing rhythm between lines and spaces is his favored principle of composition, denatured emotional color schemes his typical means of creation.

The thematic of his pictures portraits a soft rebellion of creative forces in the individual against the straitjackets of civilization and compulsions, which we all have to face in our daily life. In a time, where computers and machines steer processes of life, the pictures of Werner Schulz - Mönkeberg present us alternatives beyond the practicality. Werner Schulz – Mönkeberg paints pleas: He stands up for the imaginative power of the individualists and opposes the impersonal, inhuman routines of society.

Due to this fundamental instinctive attitude his motifs reside in the realm of environment - environment understood as natural landscape as well as cityscape or architecture. His architectural paraphrases belong to his natural repertoire of imagination. What he illustrates is mainly this: meaningful and relevantly formulated fantasy architecture. Houses, single buildings, whole city views – like the “Wiener Impressionen” (Viennese Impressions) that are the prototypes of his imagination. Creative Architecture becomes wishful thinking, which serves the individualist. Full of colorful oddities, the subjects lose their literalness, can’t be taken by the word and move into another dimension – into the realm of poetry.

The fact that he found his very specific tool while formulating his pictorial desire, the simple colored pencil, upon which he focused ever more in the course of his work, doesn’t appear to be especially remarkable. The work with the crayon just shows his attachment to the meticulous, his near pedantic love for the detail; it also serves his perfidious frequently long lasting work rage periods.

The "Wiener Impressionen" (Viennese Impressions) is a formal matching example for his specific modus operandi. The combination of a steep plan view and horizontal lineup and structure in this picture submits an attractive impression, depicted with subtle naturalness, of a naturally grown atmosphere of a reality oriented, desired world. Reality understood as a mental impetus, not more. The differentiating, fantastic color scheme, in which this city view is created, underlines this impression even more.

Significant in this picture is the phenomenon that is found in a lot of other of his pictures again and again, the cell like composition technique. With the help of a carefully created grid of cells and examination of the portrayed prospects of fantastical zones, he achieves an effect that is explained best with the expression “kaleidoscope landscape”. Because the world here looks as if displayed by a kaleidoscope; fascinating about this is the relationship between the different colors, the by Schulz – Mönkeberg selected color relations, which fluctuate between “painting in equal hues” and und placard like directness, directness that is caused by intentionally created contrasting color effects.

Werner Schulz - Mönkeberg is in his choice of motifs not exclusively limited to architecture prototypes. Landscapes and nature are equally part of his favored subjects. They are always in a relation that becomes so especially obvious in cityscapes: even if it is a flower or a tree, which is in the center of the desired world of the artist, it is as an environment arranging factor. As a factor, that has the function of modifying the human habitat - precisely calculated and based on simple poetry.

By Liesbeth Böhm, Vienna

An exhibition of vivid varieties
Delightful collective exhibition in the gallery Alfermann

The new exhibition in the Ohligser gallery Armin Alfermann finds in our opinion the high point in the pictures of the 1938 in Frankfurt born, since 1965 however with the Viennese art scene connected Werner Schulz Mönkeberg. The first pictures of the artist, who is long accepted in southern Germany, created a high anticipation for the by Ohlig planned complete exhibition in the beginning of next year. The Viennese connects poetic associations and the rhyming of the "fantastic realist" impressively with surrealistic elements and a sensitive paint style, which borrows formatting elements of constructionists and symbolists and reminds in part of the newer works by Hundertwasser. But the picture formations of the choice Wieners appear more fantastically and in their ultra thin glazes above all far more delicate, although he utilizes gold and silver tones as well. However he overcomes any placard like and spectacular effect, in order to paint "poems in an eastern storyteller style".

Hans's Karl Pesch
Rheinische post office, 30.11.74

Poetic conception of the world
Kind exhibition of the Wieners Schulz Mönkeberg at Alfermann

The exhibition of the 38 years old choice Viennese Werner Schulz Mönkeberg in the Ohligser gallery Alfermann particularly fascinates the art friend, because here an actually simple artistic raw material is led to charming effect, the perfectly ordinary (fade-proof) colored pencils.

The colored pencils cause a transparent structure, which is not lost also if –you know how- up to a dozen coats are laid on top of each other to develop unlimited rich mixing effects. Additionally the handwritten effect between-strong pressure and extra thin smearing can be integrated into the picture contents. Like that an honest art in picture topics is utilized without any technical extravagance that uses narrating attitude, kind irony, a philosophical approach - and above all rich musicality to directly report about our environment.

Cities are drawn, landscapes, humans, animals, mirror images, still lives. Everything remains almost realistically, however placed into unmistakable self-willed connections, so that a proper, small, maximum personal conception of the world develops.

It tells of a human, who came into contact with art the first time as a choir boy in the "Laubacher Kantorei” ,who practiced various office jobs and deepened in such a way the pictorial rhyming and meditating, so that today he can earn his living with it. Exhibitions brought the in Frankfurt born artist substantial successes in Austria and Southern Germany, the art critics appreciated him (among others) in a large colored report in an important art trade paper; and his first presentation in a Alfermann collective exhibition woke lively echo.

All this justifies itself in an artist, that knows how to unite the cheerful and the deep, easily overcomes the dependency on crafts, and which creates out of mental firmness permanently new picture ideas.

It was a truly delicate exhibition.

Hans's Karl Pesch
Rheinische post office, 1.2.1975

It is not all oil that shines

Werner Schulz - Mönkeberg came from Frankfurt - “therefore one finds Vienna easily more beautiful” – and likes to live by painting.

His individualistic technology shows much of his individualistic character: he uses color-pencils. The colors of the colored pencils are rubbed on the smooth cardboard dry or with turpentine. The effect is astonishing: Accurate examination of the details in an emotional fairy tale world. On one side the fantasy, attachment to naive fairy tales, on the other side criticism, mockery desire and shyness for clear declaration.

This discord in the topic of his pictures disconcerts the viewer easily. "One day, in Vienna only the cultural monuments will survive,.", says the painter and leaves it undecided whether that is good or bad. Schoenbrunn, the Ferris wheel, the Stephan’s church, the Karl’s church - unnecessary past?

The painter wishes more alive architecture

Like so many artists in these years for Werner Schulz Mönkeberg the formation of the environment is a serious request. He has nothing against standardized buildings, but where more money is present, one may be able to be more creative. Flowers are the simplest and most decorative means to make the life more bearable. As an example he shows the "Beethoven house in the time of the flowering".

An apartment tower with butterfly roofs or panorama houses lets the landscape into the house. For travel merry he suggests a "house that flies".

Mobile line - mobile life

Werner Schulz - Mönkeberg loves the flowing line in its pictures; rigid outlines are dead. Moderate Hundertwasser? For instance in the dress code of a Hutter? Fantastically realistically!

Badener newspaper

Paradise garden for the eye

Paradise gardens for the eye are the pictures of Werner Schulz Mönkeberg, which are painted with colored pencils in styles of fantastic realism usually. The hobby cook and Bonsai grower Werner Schulz Mönkeberg was born 1938 in Frankfurt/Main, was during his youth a choir boy, learned the occupation of an industrial trader and trained himself in advertising. 1965 he was send from his advertising agency to Vienna, exclusively worked since 1966 as a freelance artist and is Austrian citizen since 1972. His first exhibition was in Baden in 1971 in the Beethoven house, where his pictures – fantastic landscapes, architecture and animals - mainly fish in bizarre variants and nearly no humans – were exposed. The applied technology, which enables a very accurate work, is drawing with multicolored pencils and regular pencil on special cardboard.

Mixed technology and oil painting isn’t used so much in the artistic works of Werner Schulz-Mönkeberg.

Badener Zeitung