Serap Riedel I was born in 1960 in Sivas, Turkey, and moved to Germany in 1975, where I have lived ever since. I have been painting since childhood and have always been interested in fine arts. Unfortunately, as a teenager I did not have the opportunity for an artistic education because of the move to Germany. That's why painting always remained just a hobby for me, even as a young woman. From 1990 onwards, I wanted more and intensively trained myself autodidactically. The journalist Fuat Hendek wrote after a visit to my studio in 2010 that he could say that I alone had completed a classical academic study, with classical naturalistic drawings and form studies, various colour-technical experiments, flowers, landscapes, portraits and abstractions that slowly developed from them. (Cemil Fuat Hendek: Serap Sevunur Riedel - Ein kämpferischer Geist, Duisburg 2010, page 12). In 2007 and 2008 I attended seminars at the Free Academy of Fine Arts, Essen, with Bernard Lokai (master student of Gerhard Richter) and Henning Bertram (master student of painting with Johannes Geccelli, Armando and Georg Baselitz). Since 2003 I have shown my works in numerous solo and group exhibitions, since 2014 also in Turkey. In 2014, I designed the exhibition \"Instanzenzug - Eine künstlerische Auseinandersetzung mit Recht und Gerechtigkeit\" (2014) by invitation as a solo artist for the jubilee \"60 Jahre Bundessozialgericht\", and in 2019 for the jubilee \"60 Jahre Sozialgericht Duisburg\" the exhibition \"Nach Aufruf ...\". In 2019 I was invited to participate in the special exhibition for the 96th anniversary of the Republic in Antalya, Turkey (96 artists with 96 works). At art fairs, I was present at Artist 2014 in Instanbul in 2014, Instanbul Artshow in 2018. Besides my creative work, I am active in adult education as a lecturer in acrylic painting. I work voluntarily as an art therapist in long-term care and support for alcohol- and drugdependent women and men. Since 2014, I have been involved as a guest artist for the UKKSA (Uluslararasi Knidos Kültür Sanat Akademisi - International Knidos Culture and Art Academy). The German Wikipedia says about me: \"Riedel sees herself as an independent artist who, depending on her mood, transforms impressions gained in life into artistic expression free of stylistic constraints. In doing so, she sees her work in an ongoing and progressive multifaceted creative process of constant renewal, which can find expression in both realistic and abstract representation.\" I am not locked into one style, but always open to new ways of expression. Although I also teach my students realistic and naturalistic painting, I am currently leaning towards reduction in figurative representation and abstraction beyond that. I regularly work with acrylics, oils and watercolours, but also use different mixed techniques. Since 2013 I have also been working figuratively with ceramics. I don't give my paintings titles, because I don't want to limit the viewer with a title. Especially with abstract pictures, a title can lead to the viewer seeing the picture with blinkers on. I would rather have the viewer try to find out what connects him with the picture and thus with me.