Last week I talked about common initial reactions to my work, this week I thought I’d bring to light another preconception I have to contend with – which is that scent in art is gimmicky.
While I think that can certainly be true. I don’t think my work is. And here’s why: I am remaining true to a craft.
Perfumery is difficult, and requires extensive knowledge of scent, fragrance families, how the nose receives smells and how to delicately balance oils in order to achieve a high quality fragrance. Indeed becoming a Master Perfumer requires around 20 years of honing the craft. This is what allows my own work to achieve a certain weight and depth, as being sensitive to the craft of perfumery enables me to utilise a tangible skill that can be learned, refined and – crucially – imparted. This in turn allows the exchange knowledge, thoughts and experiences which an audience can engage with.
Not that I intend to emulate Master Perfumers, as I believe placing perfumery into a contemporary art platform allows for a degree of experimentation, innovation, freedom and failure that you seemly don’t get with conventional perfumery and it’s need to turn profit. But I do want to subvert common preconceptions of perfume, and you can’t subvert something effectively without first immersing yourself in it.
