8 December 2022 |
A ribbon is more than just a ribbon. At least that’s what Matty Bovan believes on the tail end of having spent the last few weeks braiding long strips of satin into gargantuan, amorphous sculptures. “Ribbons, to me, are loaded with feminine connotations and tricksy trimmings,” he says, adding, “I wanted to blow that apart.” Usually used as a mere “trim or flourish in fashion and craft”, Boven completely reinvents the material. “I wanted to explore a material everyone pretty much knows, and something I could get hold of in bulk,” he says, “hence: ribbons. I knew it could work across film, paintings, sculpture, and be subverted accordingly.”
The celebrated British designer was awarded this year’s Now Gallery Fashion Commission, a grant that offers innovative designers the remarkable opportunity to take their creative practice beyond the garment and enter into their own, imaginative world within the multi-faceted gallery expanse.
Duly dubbed Ribbons, the effervescent display is the York, North Yorkshire-based designer’s first-ever standalone exhibition and has been erected in collaboration with the Now Gallery, a showspace nestled amid the Greenwich Peninsula. He says that Ribbons is “a more intimate and special place” than he’s ever circumnavigated before. “[It’s] my most personal project to date, a world built in my truest vision…[But] I’m ready to invite people into a multi-sensory world of epic scale.” So, from now until March 5, 2022, the site-specific immersive installation will take the feminine symbolism of the ribbon to new extremes with intense, violent colour and high shine.
Upon entry, visitors are invited to travel through the mangled ravines of Bovan’s mind, stepping inside a central knitted ribbon structure traversing the full cavernous depth and ceiling height of the accessible art space. It feels suggestive of a piece of clothing – perhaps a deconstructed sweater. Within this cocoon you’ll absorb the exhibition from its innard, perched upon a textural custom rug. “I hope [visitors] take away dreams, nightmares, and every psychedelic glow in between this world and the next,” Bovan says, speaking of the lasting impact he hopes to have on all who enter the eclectic environment.
A democratic designer dedicated to a sustainable ethos, the yarns that Bovan used were all hand-dyed in-house in small batches in a bid to ensure minimal water use. These were then farmed out locally to knitters in York and then returned to the studio to be hand-painted, or webbed together in-house using a combination of domestic knitting machines, the punchcard technique and hand-crochet – which in the process, doesn’t use a single kilowatt of electricity.
Carrying on, a curved wall covered in Bovan’s large-scale painted canvases – on display for the first time ever – explores text and textures, composing multifaceted visual poems. He’s applied this same madcap approach to filmmaking, overloading footage with psychedelic colour and texture that shifts and melts into constantly evolving, hypnotic forms. “Blending reality and fantasy”, two worlds which he says he constantly pushes and pulls in and out of, the exclusive trilogy is collaged across three screens, with heavily saturated RBG colouring carrying its clever stories and quirky characters – all in custom Matty Bovan clothing – into a reinvented reality. Now Gallery’s curator, Jemima Burrill, even said that Bovan’s cinematic-explorations “burnt a hole in [her] retina”.
The whole thing is an assault on the senses: a soul-shattering soundtrack pummels through the showspace and walls are festooned in pretzeled knotwork. Meanwhile, industrial vents pump out a layering of cedarwood, iris absolute and frankincense into the ether. The aromas were formulated by Vyrao, fusing energetic healing with master perfumery to nurture and elevate spiritual vibrations and universal energies. There’s Turkish rose oil too, with subtle undertones of patchouli and guaiac wood, pink pepper and black tobacco, and a mossy citrus scent.
Bovan first found a fascination for fabricating something tangible from bits of string as a youngin, prompted by his grandma who introduced the then 11-year-old to the pleasures and pure limitlessness of handcraft. “I have never looked back,” he says. Bovan soon started experimenting with unconventional materials, using oversized needles and hefty yarns. He saw his grandma’s delicate gauge and “blew it up with brute force energy.” Years later, this brain-melting exhibition, flanked by glitching videos and large-scale painted canvases, gives flesh and bone to Bovan’s vision.
It would be remiss not to mention that Bovan’s installation is also editioned across a range of vivid merch comprising screen-printed hoodies, a special sweatshirt featuring knitted ribbons, T-shirts, and totes, so if you’re keen, you can bring his material musings back to your boudoir. There’s also a limited edition Ribbons book featuring exhibition imagery and exclusive painted clay earrings and kilt pins designed by Plum Bovan, the 32-year-old’s mother.
If his work with Now Galley is anything to go by, Bovan is entering an exciting new phase in his career, one that is catapulted by hedonistic creativity and total control of his artistic output.
Exhibition photography by Charles Emerson for Now Gallery and portraits of Matty Bovan by Carlos Jiménez.
