Mamut Churlu

Mamut Yusufovich Churlu was an outstanding Crimean Tatar artist and master of decorative and applied arts, as well as a designer, teacher, and researcher. He worked in different mediums and styles, encompassed painting, graphics, textiles, ceramics, and photography. His creative work and public activities were important in the revival and popularization of Crimean Tatar culture.

Churlu was born in Fergana, Uzbek SSR, in a family of deported Crimean Tatars. His interest in art began in childhood, setting him on his creative path. In 1965, he graduated from the Fergana Music College with a focus on music theory, and in 1970, he graduated from the M. I. Glinka Novosibirsk State Conservatory, having specialized as a musicologist. Yet it was his love of fine art that brought him, subsequently, to the Fergana Art College, specifically to the department of design, where from 1976 to 1980 he studied with Vasily Krylov and Yuri Aboimov.

While still a student, Churlu established the art department at the children’s art school in Fergana, where he taught from 1975 to 1980. From 1983 to 1986, he taught composition in the art design department of the Fergana Art College.

In those years, Churlu also became interested in traditional Uzbek and Tajik embroidery and tapestries. Over the course of trips around Uzbekistan, he compiled a photographic archive comprising over 2,000 images of traditional Suzani embroidery, printed textiles, quilt work, and woven and felt rugs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Over the course of many years, Churlu also collected traditional art objects, which served as his inspiration. He was the first to begin using a traditional technique of the Kyrgyz people of Fergana valley—wrapping reeds with colored wool thread— to make decorative wall panels.

After graduating from Fergana Art College, he worked as a tapestry artist at the Art Fund of the Artists’ Union of Fergana. In 1988, he became a member of the Artists’ Union of the USSR.

The year 1987 was a watershed one in the artist’s life, as he paid his first visit to the Crimean peninsula on a work trip. This complex emotional experience inspired him to pick up a paintbrush, allowing him to immediately express the feelings that had seized him. His style was therefore a result of his inner experience and is characterized by the expressionism of his laconic stylized forms, the general flatness of his compositions (stemming from folk art), deep symbolism, and sociopolitical subtext (the series Bakhchysarai is My Homeland, 1987–99, collection of the artist). The artist called his painting style “brutal.”

In 1989, during the period of the mass return of Crimean Tatars to their historic homeland, Churlu moved to Crimea. In 1990, participating in demonstrations for the provision of land to Crimean Tatars, he received a plot of land in the village of Perevalnoe, where he built a house and a studio. From that time, he devoted himself to the project of reviving, preserving, and popularizing Crimean Tatar culture.

Churlu was one of the advocates for the establishment of the Crimean Tatar National Gallery (now the Crimean Tatar Museum of Cultural and Historical Heritage) and the Association of Crimean Tatar Artists. He was an active organizer of the earliest exhibitions of work by Crimean Tatar artists. His own works were exhibited in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, Tashkent, Sevastopol, Simferopol, Feodosia, Koktebel, Duisburg, Cologne, and Heidelberg. As the director of the Association of Crimean Tatar Artists, Churlu gave free lectures and taught master classes. In 1990, he joined the board of the Crimean Tatar Cultural Foundation.

Churlu’s special focus was the study of the language of örnek, Crimean Tatar ornament, and its symbolism, as well as training young artists in the foundations of creating ornamental forms. This work contributed to the revival and preservation of various forms of Crimean Tatar decorative art, including embroidery, carpet weaving, and ceramics. In the mid-1990s, Churlu headed a project to revive the practice of Crimean Tatar kilim weaving. He developed a curriculum focusing on ornament, helping to preserve traditional patterns in textile work.    In 2005, the artist became the founder and organizer of the Crimean Style project, aimed at reviving folk crafts and adapting them for modern practice. He founded the Chatyr-Dag group, gathering young decorative-arts practitioners with shared interests in these traditions.

Churlu’s own works combine elements of traditional Crimean Tatar art and contemporary artistic movements. Work from Churlu’s Crimean period is usually executed in bright colors and is characterized by geometric patterns and rich symbolism, intended to relate the spirit and culture of his people using traditional motifs in a contemporary context.

Throughout, Churlu was an active participant in the community of artists. He became a member of the Artists’ Union of the USSR in 1988, the National Artists’ Union of Ukraine in 1991, and the Artists’ Union of Russia in 2014.

For his contributions to the development of Crimean Tatar culture, in 1999 the artist received the Ismail Gasprinsky Award from the Association of National Societies. In 2010, he became an Honored Artist of Ukraine. His works are held in museums and private collections worldwide.

In addition to his creative work, he was a teacher and a thorough researcher of traditional Crimean Tatar culture, an organizer of many exhibitions, a mentor of young artists working in folk traditions, and the creator of design projects in an ethnic style. Churlu made an indelible mark in the history of Crimean Tatar art. His work, springing from rich traditions and open to innovative methods, forms a bridge between the past and the future.

Elmira Gyul

Translated from Russian by Elina Alter