Translating worn design into towering knitted structures, to be experienced from within, award-winning fashion designer Matty Bovan moves into a different medium for his first exhibition, on display at London’s NOW Gallery. Filling floor-to-ceiling with large-scale textile art, RIBBONS sees the York-based designer scale up his craft as artist, with hand-knitted ribbons forming the skeleton of cavernous, amorphous forms in 3-D – juxtaposing fantasy and reality in what he describes as an exploration of “aggressive colour, aggressive texture, and storytelling”.

As a contextually loaded material, and a symbol of the feminine, traditionally cast in the supporting role, ribbons of every colour transcend from trimming, becoming both the backbone of the show, and appendages to Bovan’s interlocking installation pieces. In accompanying short film, RIBBONS, director Carlos Jimenez unpacks Matty Bovan’s surreal world from the inside out, collaging snapshots of the space, and his creative world in high-technicolour, with Bovan as main character.

Building out from paintings and manipulated footage, displayed within the space, Jimenez’s film adds another dimension to the exhibition, presenting a multimedia world in which dreams and nightmares collide. With Bovan as art director, the moving image becomes a central pillar of the warped vision on display in RIBBONS, expanding the artistic process, and the contextual weight behind his concepts – visually joyous, yet concealing depth in its subject matter that belies the vibrant palettes in play.