T omma Abts is a Turner Prize-winning German-born artist known for her distinctive geometric abstract paintings, created freehand through meticulously layered oil and acrylic compositions. Represented by David Zwirner, her work is held in major museum collections including MoMA, Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou.
Tomma Abts Biography
Born in Kiel, Germany, and now based in London, Tomma Abts explores the spontaneity of creativity and cognition through abstraction. Abts studied fine arts at the prestigious Universität der Künste Berlin (Berlin University of the Arts), where she developed the singular vernacular and clarity of vision that now define her mature practice.
Abts creates complex freehand geometric abstractions that showcase a masterful understanding of form and color. Working without reference and using only oil and acrylic paint, Abts builds her compositions layer by layer, creating canvases full of dimensionality, light, shadow, and potential energy; once completed, she names her paintings after distinct German regions. Central to her practice is the exploration of painting in its most reduced form and the juxtaposition of moving and static imagery.
A recipient of the Tate Modern’s esteemed Turner Prize, Abts has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions. She has been represented by David Zwirner since 2005; her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Sammlung Goetz, Munich; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among many others.
Read Less
