Brian Wooden could teach us all a lesson in knowing thyself: The Nashville-based street artist, who grew up skateboarding and immersed in graffiti culture, always wanted to work in animation and fine art. Later on, as a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, he found himself approaching realistic portraiture in what he calls a “soft, painterly way.” But, he says, he knew this path wasn’t true to his self.

“I wasn’t having much fun — it was just a little too serious for me,” he says. “So I made a hard transition one day and started going back into more illustrative work.” He returned to his passion for street art, composing massive outdoor wall murals with abstracted cartoon characters; his work is riotous, filled with movement and colour.

Recently, he was invited to participate in Haworth’s DesignLab — a months-long collaboration between the contract furniture manufacturer and a handful of emerging artists and designers from across the U.S. and Mexico. Revealed during NeoCon in June, his interior installation entitled Inter-Dimension reaffirms his renewed commitment to his true aesthetic intentions.

The process of moving from street art to high design wasn’t easy — in fact, it was a bit intimidating. “At first, I was trying to scale it way back and kind of, like, hide myself a little and mute things a little,” he explains. “And then the pendulum started to swing back. And it was like, ‘No, I need to keep my personality.’ ” Instead of thinking about interiors, he thought about what he’d love to see: a giant cartoon character, something really bold.

Inter-Dimension consists of two pieces: a massive, colourful tapestry that cascades down from the wall and continues over the floor and, set atop that, a large, matching upholstered ottoman. The tapestry and circular ottoman pattern reflects Wooden’s loud cartoon aesthetic, fine-tuned for this project through a close collaboration with Gan Rugs and mentor Patricia Urquiola, who was brought on to work with Haworth’s DesignLab participants.

The tapestry features multi-piled tufts that create depth: Thick strokes of low-piled black outline vibrant blues, yellows and magentas in higher piles, rendering them brighter and more three-dimensional. Wooden decided the ottoman should blend in with the tapestry; while at first one might not notice the seat, the more a visitor explores the installation, the more they discover.