Turner's latest angle on art

AFTER years of unmade beds, pickled sheep and lightbulbs that switch on and off, Britain's most prestigious art prize was won last night by the most unlikely kind of artist - a painter.

German-born Tomma Abts, who paints abstract canvases exactly 48cm by 38cm wide, was honoured with the £25,000 Turner Prize.

Her win comes amid talk of a return to painting in the art world.

Abts, 38, turns out sharp-edged, shaded, geometric designs that carry mysterious and meaningless names like Lubbe and Mehm. She begins them with little idea of what she will paint.

The Turner Prize jury, chaired by the Tate director Nicholas Serota, said her "densely worked canvases take shape through a gradual process of layering, and bear the visible traces of their making.

"The jury admired the rigour and consistency of Abts' painting, in which compelling images reveal their complexity slowly over time."

The £25,000 prize was to be presented by Yoko Ono at London's Tate Britain gallery.

The decision came in a year when the prize contenders were seen by some critics as short on both controversy and talent, with some suggestions that there should be no prize at all.

Abts says that in her paintings "the forms don't stand for anything else, they don't symbolise anything or describe anything outside the painting. They represent themselves".

She was on a shortlist alongside Glasgow-based video artist Phil Collins, sculptor Rebecca Warren, and poster artist Mark Titchner. They win £5,000 each.

The last painter to win the Turner Prize was Keith Tyson, in 2002, but he worked across many art forms.

Chris Offili won in 1998, but his speciality was using elephant dung in his paintings.

The shortlisted artists for the prize were named in May, going on to produce work for the Tate Britain exhibition, which ends next month. In choosing Abts for the shortlist, the Turner Prize panel said it showed painting was "alive and kicking".

Duncan MacMillan, The Scotsman's art critic, had predicted Abts would win, but was unimpressed by her paintings.

"They are all the same size, not very brightly coloured, pretty boring and drab," he said.

"The Turner Prize judges would like us to think that they are on a return to painting. She doesn't really qualify. She's a boring painter."

More notorious Turner winners have ranged from the transvestite potter Grayson Perry to the pickled sharks of Damien Hirst.

Warren had been the bookies' favourite this year. She became famous for her "knobbly" sculptures of female figures made of unfired clay and bronze, drawing inspiration from Degas and Rodin.

Titchner's display was dominated by a giant billboard announcing: "Tiny masters of the world come out!"

Collins, who is originally from Cheshire but who announced his move to Glasgow earlier this year, was never seen as a likely winner. But he won far more media coverage than his rivals for "art" that looked very like a television documentary. His exhibition space became the office of his production company where "victims" of reality TV programmes were interviewed about their experiences on video.