Tomma Abts wins Turner Prize

Nicholas Glass speaks to the winner of this year's Turner Prize, Tomma Abts, live on Channel 4 News.

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It's been announced that abstract painter Tomma Abts has won the Turner Prize.

It's only the third time a woman has won in its twenty two year history. Abts's work is deliberately modest - paintings on canvas always nineteen inches by fifteen.

The German born artist - on collecting the twenty five thousand pound prize - said she now felt part of the British art scene.

Tomma Abts profile

German- born Tomma Abts is nominated for her solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel contemporary art institution, in Switzerland, and the private greengrassi gallery in London.

Working consistently within the small portrait frame of 48x38cm, Abts' art is characterised by abstract geometric shapes and numerous layers of paint, repetitively worked at to achieve a depth in her work that is both physically and expressively driven.

Such tensions are the essence of her paintings which are regarded as struggling between illusion and reality and the artist enjoys the uncertainty that these responses bring.

"I work inside- out, so to say, and the shapes are almost negative shapes," she says.

"I start with nothing really, I make no sketches before I start the painting, I work directly onto the canvas."

Related links
Turner Prize nominee profiles
Turner Prize gallery
Official website: Turner Prize 2006