Tomma Abts

Tomma Abts (born 1967 in Kiel) is one of the defining figures in international contemporary painting. In her paintings and drawings, she explores the relationship between form, color, and pictorial space. Her abstract compositions develop in a slow, step-by-step process in which diverse forms and nuanced color palettes coalesce into dynamic pictorial structures. In 2006, Abts became the first German to be awarded the prestigious Turner Prize. She has lived and worked in London since 1995.

At the invitation of the Fridericianum, Tomma Abts is broadening her artistic practice for the first time to create a site-specific interior wall painting. The starting point for this intervention is the Rotunda’s unique architecture on the second floor: the central open space, the semicircular structure, and the fan-shaped glass roof. 

From these spatial conditions, the artist draws upon four shapes—circle, square, ellipse, and rhombus—which develop into a composition within the space. While the first two elements sit directly beneath the glass roof, the ellipse and rhombus appear on the lower rear wall. These shapes interact both with one another and with the architecture; at the same time, their spatial arrangement creates the impression of foreground and background—or of shapes and their shadows.

With this wall painting, Abts extends her precise exploration of form, color, and composition from the pictorial plane into the architectural space. The specific color palette, the tonality of the outlines, and the positioning of the shapes were developed on site in a multi-step process and transferred to the wall by members of the Kunsthalle’s technical staff. Architecture itself thus becomes an integral part of the painterly composition.