German Woman Wins Britain's Prestigious Turner Prize

Abts is the first painter in eight years to receive the prize and is the first female painter to ever receive the prize and only the second German. She said she did not know what she would do with the ₤25,000 (37,000 euros, $49,000) that accompany the award -- but that it was very nice.

Abts was born in the northern German city of Kiel and has been living in London for over 10 years. Her small canvasses are always 48 x 38 centimeters (19 x 15 inches) and she paints with oil and acrylic.

Abts does not use an easel and does not she hang her canvass on the wall. Instead, she lays her canvas flat, allowing her to view her work from above, almost like a writer poring over a blank sheet of paper on a desk. By preferring this method, she joins distinguished artists Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock.

Art from nothing

Abts poses with her abstract work

Abts said she does not use source material and begins without any preconceived ideas of how the final result.

"When I start the painting I begin with nothing," she said. "I don't make any sketches, maybe I'll start by putting a particular color on the canvas, and then I very slowly start making shapes."

The last thing she does is to name her works, taking them from a German dictionary of first names, such as Ebe or Lübbe.

Experts have said Abts' work builds on and enriches the language of abstract painting through her intimate and compelling canvasses.

"Disturbingly weird"

British art critic Adrian Searle described her work as "disturbingly weird" in a review of her 2005 Greengrassi exhibition in the British capital, but he compellingly argued that her work deserved critical attention, likening her to a poker-faced card player.

"Such players stay in the game the longest," Searle said. "They are fixating to watch, even if it is hard to follow their game."

Shark preserved in formaldehyde by former Turner winner Damien Hirst

The Turner prize was set up by the Tate Gallery in 1984 to honor living artists younger than 50 who either work in Britain or are British-born. Former winners include controversial artists Damien Hirst, who notoriously displayed a shark's corpse and other various dead animal parts preserved in formaldehyde, and Chris Offili, who has used cowpats as paint.

Such decisions on the part of the Turner judge's often provoked sensationalist headlines and led to nationwide debate on whether art or hype was being celebrated.

The three other short-listed nominees each received ₤5,000. Phil Collins' work was based around a film called "The Return of the Real" where people whose lives had been ruined by reality TV were given the chance to tell their stories. Mark Titchner was noted for his brightly-colored installations which question belief systems from religion to science and Rebecca Warren's highly-sexualized sculptures "gently question the authority" of established artists such as Picasso and Giacometti.