The Colour Group (GB), founded in 1940, is an interdisciplinary society that draws together people interested in all aspects of colour – its perception, measurement, reproduction and artistic expression. Every couple of years the Colour Group (GB) invites a distinguished artist or art historian to give the Turner Lecture, and a sterling silver medal is awarded to mark the occasion.

We are thrilled to announce that Margo Selby is the 2021 Turner Lecturer and recipient of the Turner Medal.

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.

Past Turner Medal Recipients
1998 Peter Sedgley
2000 Albert Irvin
2001 Martin Kemp
2003 Roy Osborne
2007 Zandra Rhodes
2009 John Gage
2011 Bridget Riley
2013 Kaffe Fassett
2015 Carlos Cruz-Diez
2017 Michael Craig-Martin
2019 Sarah Street

https://www.colour.org.uk

Image credit: Carmel King