Turner Prize (2006) Awarded

Congratulations to Tomma Abts, who became the first female winner of the Turner Prize award yesterday (I think, the time difference between here and Europe makes my head swim a bit). That’s the award given to a young and influential artist in England every year, in case you’re not aware.

I’ll leave aside any criticism I might or might not have of the process (The gist: Mostly that it’s more concerned with form and rote conceptualism than anything like real innovation or actually creating art. It’s more than a little controversial in the art world thanks to its , I imagine, if not to the degree that the BCS has become in Wolverine nation.) and instead concentrate on what’s actually important: the artist herself. Check out this gallery if you’re interested in seeing some of her stuff. Here’s one painting by Tomma Abts entitled Ert (2003) that I particularly enjoy:



And another Veeke (2005)


What you might not notice from the pixels is that both images are the same size. The artist creates all her paintings on the same 48x38cm sized canvases (That’s about a foot and a half by a foot for the non-metrically inclined - if I’m doing the conversions right, that is.). Which is quite small in the world of painting (And interesting because the common wisdom is that most people prefer larger scale paintings if you’re inclined to sell them. Darned if I can find the precise quote at the moment, though.) and serves to create a much more intimate viewing experience. What I find particularly engaging in her work is the sense of depth and structure she creates solely from geometric shapes. The clean, crisp lines combined with the bright colors of her palette make for an almost sculptural approach to the canvas as she layers and builds up. But she does so visually and without the rough applications of paint and fierce brushstrokes of the first attempts to take the two-dimensional image of a painting into the third dimension. And combined with the soft, rounded, wandering curvolinear shapes it creates a view that’s almost warm and inviting from what are stark, lifeless shapes. I mean, I’m not art critic but I know what I like and - I think, anyway - she’s got some good stuff. Always nice to have someone else confirm my suspicions though.