Tomur Atagök, 1939

Tomur Atagök studied the plastic arts at Oklahoma State University and California College of Arts and Crafts and she holds an MA in the same subject from the University of California at Berkeley. Tomur Atagök is the founder of academic museum studies in Turkey.

Through her works, Atagök seeks to create spaces for viewers to think and question. She utilizes alternative materials and surfaces in her works, and this variability of materials allow her to represent diverse ideas. Her work is characterized by its unusual materials and surfaces and in some of her early works she uses handmade paper. In later work she uses steel and aluminum as surfaces, as well as the more usual canvas. In the 1990s she produced works that successfully combined these surfaces and collage.

Women have been a particularly important theme in Tomur Atagök’s work since the 1970s. In her paintings that explore female identity, existence and relationships using different forms of expression, we often encounter goddesses and women who have attained mythical status in addition to ordinary women figures. “Madonna with a Thousand Faces” is one of the best examples of this tendency. Addressing the singer Madonna, a social figure, the painting portrays a woman who refrains from using her family name instead adopting the name of a religious figure as her stage name, and assuming a different role each time she is on stage. This tendency, which is an aspect of 1980s fashion, is also present in the drummer as well as the other women figures in the third panel of the painting. In this regard, the painting is a commentary on the need to conceal one’s face and ultimately one’s identity using a mask, and the effort to look like someone else.