DECEMBER
2013
01.
The Empty Fire Pit
For me it represented
emptiness.
02.
The idea of a Chemical Reaction.
The mix of ceramics, glazes and fires
and its transformation into other stages.
03.
The Smoke
Representing the unseen.
An apparition.
04.
A man made oil / lubricant.
Reflecting on thoughts of a tiger…
a wild cat.
05.
The process of oxidization.
The reaction of elements.
Elemental qualities merging together
through a heat source.
06.
Prairie Sage
I had this feeling of cleansing.
Smoke as a medium to disinfect.
07.
Seamen splashed over my stomach
in front of the open fire.
A heat source.
That zone heating my body.
08.
Black Algae
A black seaweed. This is called dead man’s fingers.
I collected these pieces and had this
apocalyptic feeling and sense of getting
to the heart of the sea’s bottom.
A subterranean material,
that is revealed when the tide goes out very far back.
An element that is rarely seen or surfaces,
one that is discovered.
09.
For me this was very symbolic.
The weight of meaning.
The weight of what is important.
Thick lead weight. Prairie buffalo
hair. And made a few sculptures.
the weight of meaning.
meaning of life, meaning of art.
10.
This was a lung cleanse that I drank.
Feelings of strengthening
for the upkeep of the body.
Health and energy.
11.
This was a Hungarian vest
from the late eighteen hundreds.
I had images of a Hungarian woman
working in the fields surrounded by nature.
A very practical and functional piece providing warmth.
A bouquet of fabrics and embroidery.
This old world feeling,
a scent of history and who wore it.
12.
This is my morning coffee.
13.
Jasmine
This is a Jasmine ball.
My garden is filled with jasmine.
When I was a child I was not able to use perfume or makeup
and my first introduction to scents
were more essential oils,
and I think Jasmine was my first
and this was my favourite.
For me jasmine represents
pure beauty and femininity.
14.
This is the outside of a pot I always use.
The scent emitted from cooking in this pot.
15.
On this day a friend brought some turnips.
I felt the warmth and this feeling of comfort
before I cooked it.
Like it was a premonition of what
or how I would feel when eating it.
Comfort Food.
16.
Nine Fox Tails.
My friend’s dad cut these off for me.
In Japan this is very symbolic,
representing the heights of animal deity,
magic and endless mysticism
17.
It had rained and this piece of wood was damp
and it felt like you were smelling
the blood of the tree;
a piercing scent.
However, there was this sweet cherry tree type of smell
(although it was not a cherry tree)
mixed with the smell of freshly cut wood
or wet wood.
18.
This picture was taken from a library my friends own,
there is also a stage.
These curtains tell the story of all the things
that exist and occur in the space;
absorbing and containing all the scents from the room.
An accumulation or concentration
of everything that lives in the space.
Theatrical in a way, linking back to me
as a performance artist.
A symbol of theater, the plays,
the dance of reality.
19.
A Bear sculpture outside of my friend’s house.
It is like an animal spirit.
At night it comes to life.
I get the feeling of a stone
having a life source of its own,
and I imagine the scent of this animal.
There is a sense of protection;
standing guard over us.
20.
The feeling of clarity,
an open field
21.
Chair made out of skunk tails.
The repulsive scent.
It was horrible.
This kind of colonialist aesthetic
and consumption.
22.
A friend of mine grows magic mushrooms.
They are these beautiful mushrooms
grown in clean horse manure in Hyde Park area.
For me this is the irony of the unknowing queen
offering us and her animals an experience.
The hallucinatory heightening of awareness.
The psychedelia of our scents, senses
and our perceptions of things.
23.
This is a hay feeder I discovered on our trip
for miniature sheep.
The wildness in the wild.
24.
During the holidays it was a time of relaxation,
by the fire getting high in a lodge in Germany.
This feeling of timelessness, repetition,
time being lost / found,
things blurring into each other.
I have a special concoction of chemicals
that, when you put into the fire,
they create these colours,
creating a mystic fire
25.
26.
27.
Taking A Life
A tilapia harvested by my friend,
that was later cooked.
28.
This is musk soap from Morocco,
it is to die for, very incredible.
With the musk placed on a plinth
of obsidian stone from Mexico,
giving this sense of reverence; honouring it.
A feeling of decadence,
a magical stone holding this musk.
29.
This is vison hair.
Before hunting, the native Americans
would rub themselves with the fur of the animal,
so they could blend in with the landscape.
For me this is the merging
with the things you are trying to obtain.
The embodiment.
30.
A hunter’s hut,
for me this was a meditative location
and site of observation.
The silence again,
coming back to solitude
in the hunter’s lodge.
31.
In Susan Irvine‘s book The Perfume Guide,
on the last page there was
the deity of scents
the end of my journey.
Olfactive Journal
This Is the Hunt
Perfumer — Antoine Lie
Carrot leafy green tops, Humus Ether (a captive Takasago molecule), Smoky Poppy Accord.
12 / 2013
Series Statement
Over fixed periods, we invite artists to keep a diary with us — through audio, text, video, image.
They share textures, thoughts and experiences from that time.
At the diary’s close, our perfumer creates a fragrance — not as translation, but as portrait.
A period in the artist’s life,
filtered through another’s attention.
The scent becomes an anchor, but not for preservation.
For return. For continuation in another form.
