It is becoming clear that April is going to be a rather busy month. It will see me host 3 perfume making workshops, an artist’s talk and, predominantly, my first Perfume as Practice solo show of the year – Perfume as Practice SS18 at Bureau Gallery, Blackburn.
On Saturday I will visit the gallery in order to gauge the space and decide the volume of fragrance it can accommodate. Doing this is something of a dark art as the ethereal nature of how scent exists physically and the effect of scent upon an audience cannot wholly be quantified. But experience has taught me that less is more: My very first Perfume as Practice solo show at Bank Street Arts housed no less than 25 perfumes in a small, almost domestic space. Needless to say it was a rather heady experience and the perfumes themselves were positioned too close to each other, making them hard to comprehend visually:
My most recent exhibition at Surface Gallery housed 20 perfumes in a space about 5 times larger than my first show. This was a good amount as the audience could exist within the space without getting overloaded by fragrance.
There are other variables, of course, to the ways in which scent exists within a space; other considerations include how large the bottles are, exactly how an audience interacts with the fragrance and whether the perfume is alcohol or oil based. These considerations will all be factored in to my assessment of the space on Saturday to ensure a composed experience for my audience.
There is a degree of coyness to April’s barrage of creative activity as I’m conscious of taking too much on. But I’m confident that the quality of my work will not suffer. So let’s just get on with it!
