ARTIST Tracey Emin will pay tribute to her home town of Margate with a huge pink neon sign over Droit House that will read: “I never stopped loving you.”

Emin, who visits the town regularly and often writes about its impact on her life, was refused permission to put up an identical sign by Thanet council in 2003.

After an application was put forward by Turner Contemporary curator Sarah Martin, the authority allowed the sign to go up in the autumn.

Designed in Emin’s handwritten scrawl the sign is one of a series of similar pieces by the controversial artist, who was a runner up for the Turner Prize and has an international reputation for her work.

She has often spoken about Margate in newspaper articles. In one she claimed she was raped while growing up in the town.

Despite that experience, her illuminated sign and its message will appear to show that Margate still has a place in her heart.

The application was approved by Thanet council’s planning boss Brian White in April this year and supported by planning officer Doug Brown. The lettering will be contained in a glass box over the porch of Droit House – an information centre for the Turner Contemporary art gallery, which is under construction on the Rendezvous site next door.

Emin is widely expected to be one of the first artists to exhibit at the Turner Contemporary when it opens in spring 2011.

She made a film in Margate in 2006 called Top Spot which she chose to premiere at Cliftonville’s Walpole Bay hotel, but the neon sign that will go up is Emin’s first work to be displayed in the town. She took part in the first Folkestone Triennial last year with a series of sculptures of baby clothes apparently left in public places.

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