The Turner Medal lecture 2021: Margo Selby, Weaving In Colour

About every two years the Colour Group invites a distinguished artist or art historian, to give The Turner Lecture, honouring Britain’s greatest colourist. A sterling silver medal is awarded to mark the occasion, and the recipient presents a keynote lecture related to their work.

This year Margo Selby is being awarded the Turner Medal for her textiles-based colour practise. You can find out more about Margo Selby at her website here. 

Tickets are free for members and non-members, but please sign up in advance at the link below in order to receive the joining link for the event. 

Weaving in Colour

Colour is absolutely central to all of Margo’s work in textiles art and design – the effects of colour in a pattern – the relationship between colour and woven thread – and the physical impact of colour.

Margo’s handwoven artworks are painterly, in regard to the optical mixing of pure colour – and sculptural, due to the physicality of woven thread as a mode of construction: the colour is the form. As yarn, the colours are integral, rather than applied to a surface. The woven textile is stretched, framed and wall-mounted, but the works are intended to operate as visual objects rather than pictures or decoration. Formal aesthetics are paramount, and in constant intersection – colour, shape, orientation, rhythm – the grammar of Margo’s language – a rumination on the visual.

Margo frames her ethos as ‘Art Into Industry’ – alongside her art practice, she oversees the design work of her studio for artisan and industrial textiles production, collaborating often with global manufacturers and retailers.

Margo’s medal presentation and lecture, Weaving in Colour, will take place online, 9 June 2021 at 3pm, the link to join the talk will be distributed by email to all sign-ups before the event begins.