Tomma Abts’s paintings are the result of a rigorous working method that pitches the rational against the intuitive. She works consistently to a format of 48 x 38 centimetres in acrylic and oil paint. She uses no source material and begins with no preconceived idea of the final result. Instead, her paintings take shape through a gradual process of layering and accrual. As the internal logic of each composition unfolds forms are defined, buried and rediscovered until the painting becomes ‘congruent with itself’.

Abts describes the finished works as ‘a concentrate of the many paintings underneath’, each functioning as an autonomous object revealing the visible traces of its construction.

Abts creates a complex interplay between the painting’s physical surface and the form that it describes. Planes that appear to be located in the foreground also remain embedded within the structure of the painting itself; shapes are both overlapping and integrated. Abstract elements might hover on the edge of representation but are then undermined by an incongruous perspective or colour scheme.

While each work develops within its own parameters, hung together in the gallery one is aware of formal and tonal relationships between canvases, reflecting the way Abts works on many at once, allowing ideas to migrate from one to another. Her titles are derived from a dictionary of first names and the process of naming marks the work’s completion.

Tomma Abts is nominated for her solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, and greengrassi, London, that revealed her rigorous and consistent approach to painting. Through her intimate and compelling canvases she builds on and enriches the language of abstract painting.

Tomma Abts: Three Minute Wonder

Directed by Emily Dixon
Abts describes her process, detailing the journey from blank canvas to finished work.

Tomma Abts Ebe, 2005 Acrylic & oil on canvas 48cm x 38cm Courtesy greengrassi, London enlarge

Tomma Abts Lübbe, 2005 Acrylic & oil on canvas 48cm x 38cm Courtesy greengrassi, London enlarge

Tomma Abts Epko, 2002 Acrylic & oil on canvas 48cm x 38cm Courtesy greengrassi, London enlarge

Tomma Abts Ert, 2003 Acrylic & oil on canvas 48cm x 38cm Boros Collection, Berlin enlarge

Audio Guide

The Turner Prize 2006 audio guide is available from the ticket office outside the exhibition.
Listen to three clips from the audio guide below.

Audio guide transcripts: Louisa Buck on Tomma Abts Martin McGeown on Tomma Abts Andrew Renton on Tomma Abts

You must have version 8 or higher of the Flash Player installed on your computer in order to view the mp3 player, select and playback tracks. To download the latest version of Flash see here.

Artist Biography

1967	Born Kiel, Germany
1989–1995	Hochschule der Künste Berlin
Lives and works in London