Gülhanım Dönmez was born in Erzurum in 1971. She graduated from Kadıköy Imam Hatip High School in 1989. Dönmez started taking illumination classes from Ali Rıza Özcan at the Applied Turkish-Islamic Arts Library in 2003 and received her license in 2015. She participated in many group exhibitions in Turkey. Dönmez still attends Ali Rıza Özcan’s classes at the Applied Turkish-Islamic Arts Library and continues her studies at her own workshop.