Tomma Abts

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Tomma Abts (* 1967 in Kiel ) is a German painter and winner of the prestigious Turner Prizes 2006. Since the late 1990s, in paints London living artist small-scale, abstract acrylic and oil paintings mainly geometric shapes.

life and work

Tomma Abts studied from 1989 to 1995 at the Berlin University of the Arts . She was a master student in Heinz Emigholz's film class . In 1995, she went with a DAAD - scholarship to London , where she has lived ever since.

In 2004 she received the Award for Visual Arts from The Paul Hamlyn Foundation . The award has been presented annually to five artists in the UK and Ireland since 1998 . In 2006 Tomma Abts was awarded the most important British prize for fine arts, the Turner Prize . Her solo exhibitions in the Kunsthalle Basel and in the gallery greengrassi (London) were named in the reason for the award .

The abstract acrylic and oil paintings by Tomma Abts are often created in a long painting process. The strict, geometric compositions of the pictures do not refer to what has been seen, but rather develop from the logic of the multiple layers of color superimposed on one another.

In this long painting process, each of her paintings is painted in different layers, with some works still recognizing the initial situation, with others it has almost completely disappeared. In each work step she changes the construction and composition and adds a new layer of color. This process of creation and revision requires time, which is shaped by the repetitive principle of questioning and rethinking. Every picture is for a painterly research, in which every phase of the picture and every subjective decision becomes important. She composes images that appear complex and spatial and that change in their perception depending on the point of view.

The titles of her abstract oil and acrylic paintings such as B. "Feye", "Ehme", which are always in the same format (38 cm × 48 cm), derives from a directory of German first names. Her painting is “exact and blurred at the same time.” It is important to her to develop “something of her own”. Her works “should not only speak for themselves, but also stand for themselves.” Therefore, the artist rarely gives interviews.

In 2018, her first solo exhibition in a non-commercial British institution shows works that are larger in size and cut in the middle and the corners are rounded. The range of materials has also expanded, the paintings are casts made of bronze and aluminum of the same painted model.

From the summer semester 2010, Abts was appointed full professor of painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy .

On behalf of the London public transport company , she designed posters and folding underground maps in 2016.

Exhibitions

The presentation is limited to the solo exhibitions by Tomma Abts

Awards

  • 2004: "The Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Arts" 
  • 2006: "Turner Prize 2006" 

literature

Web links

Galleries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Alexander Menden: She feels her way through. The German painter Tomma Abts felt welcomed in London when she won the Turner Prize. Now she has designed the subway plan. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , No. 44, February 23, 2016, p. 13.
  2. ↑ a b The Paul Hamlyn Foundation: Awards ( Memento from October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Press release of the Berlin Biennale ( Memento from January 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)
  4. ^ Tomma Abts ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Kunsthallebasel.ch
  5. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Tomma Abts' painting. Retrieved June 16, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Tomma Abts - biography. ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch:
  7. ^ Tomma Abts wins Turner Prize 2006 Tate Britain
personal data
SURNAME Abbot, Tomma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1967
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel