True colours
- Margo is an experienced weaver driven by a fascination for colour
- She has worked with manufacturers for decades to integrate handweaving into industrial textile products
- Bubble-wrap inspired her signature 3D cloth structure
Renowned British textile artist Margo Selby discovered her passion for weaving at Chelsea College of Art and spent 18 months at the Ann Sutton Foundation from 2001. She worked on projects as part of the studio whilst also developing her own practice. Characterised by its geometric construction in colours, her work sits in the intersection of art, craft and design. Margo’s approach is experimental – she tries to innovate with a combination of yarn, colour and structure to make fabrics which have never been made before. She presents these as contemporary artwork – yet uses traditional techniques and looms which have been around for hundreds of years. "I create artworks that explore repetition and transition, symmetry and asymmetry, the dynamic and the stable," says Margo. Colour is the driving force behind her work. “That and the chiaroscuro, light and dark, and the contrast between colours,” she explains.
Discover her work
INTERVIEW
On my art foundation course at Camberwell, I discovered I could specialise in textiles. When I first tried weaving during my textiles degree at Chelsea College of Art I knew I was excited by the craft and ready to commit to making this my specialism. After graduating, I spent 18 months with a fellowship at the Ann Sutton Foundation.
I love the disciplined nature of the craft and working with the boundaries of the loom. I also love the relationship between weaving and mathematics – the sense of order this brings.
On the handloom I have developed a specialisation in the Lampas technique, a woven structure which allows pure colour to be seen in both the warp and the weft. I have spent 20 years working with industry to combine handwoven ideas with industrial production and as such I do specialise in working with textile manufacturers.
The fact that my signature three-dimensional cloth structure, for silk scarves and soft furnishing fabric, was inspired by bubble-wrap! It is woven in silk with a heat shrink yarn and its double cloth structure creates a unique embossed texture.
