Tomma Abts and Intention in a Post-Ironic Stage

Tomma Abts
Lives and works in London, UK. In 2011 she had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany, and greengrassi, London. Her work is included in the group show ‘The Indiscipline of Painting’ at the Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, UK, until 10 March.


 

Uphe, 2011, acrylic and oil on canvas





CB Over the years, some of the painters I admire most have said that their main objective is to create an image they have never seen before. I’m curious if you share that conviction and, if so, what relationship that goal might have to abstraction?
Tomma Abts I don’t know if I would call it a ‘goal’ to make something unseen, but maybe an incentive – not knowing what the outcome might be is what makes me want to start another painting. I have no plans, sketches or preconceptions when I begin, it is just decision after decision – an ongoing process of putting something onto the canvas and then editing it, then putting something down and editing it again – and in that way slowly constructing something. I don’t think that ‘unseen’ equals ‘abstract’; I think unseen has to do with the openness of the process. The making itself leads the way. The image is the manifestation of the process.
I am not sure what the term abstraction means at this point. I have certainly never made a decision to be an abstract painter in the sense of having a concept I have to adhere to. I just think it gives me a lot of freedom not to have to work around representational issues, meaning that nothing is a given.
CB Forging something from nothing is a deeply romantic idea. Is romance something that exists for you when making an image and, if so, can you say how? Do you imagine the viewer having access to that sentiment?
TA ‘Romantic’ isn’t something I am afraid of or embarrassed about, but I don’t think about it or the viewer’s response. When I paint, I have to deal with the problems at hand. But I know that viewers’ responses go beyond recognizing the formal construction, or the discourse it might relate to in their heads. There is something else going on, because the painting is developed over time – while working on it I am always open to what I might do with it next, nothing is fixed. And, as we all know, ‘higher beings’ are involved!
CB Perhaps you mean that in jest, but I do think artists – often those who deal to some extent with abstraction – are becoming more forthright about the relationship of their working process to metaphysical concerns or even spirituality. What do you mean when you say ‘higher beings’?
TA I was hoping not to have to expand on that! Sigmar Polke summed up this discussion perfectly in the 1960s. Most painters have the experience that painting ‘happens’ not when you try really hard, but in the moment when you let go. Things can fall into place in a way you couldn’t have conceived of before. I don’t feel comfortable with the word ‘spirituality’ in connection with my work. It immediately evokes a notion of spiritual kitsch, and makes me think of work that takes itself too seriously in its tackling of grand themes. For me, painting is a concrete experiment that is anchored in the material I am handling. Metaphysical concerns – in the sense of examining the properties and possibilities of an object – sounds better.