Smell of Roses

Memory can be invoked by more senses that just the visual one.Valeska Soares creates works that activate a range of bodily sensations, notably the sense of smell.She has made much use of fresh flowers in her work as well as perfume. Her work Vanishing Point contained fifteen large stainless steel vessels filed with a solution of oil and perfume which  impregnated the host gallery with an intoxicating smell.Her work tread the fine line between materiality and memory.

Valeska Soares "Vanishing Point" 2001

Other artists who incorporate the sense of smell into their sculpturesinclude Ernesto Neto and Montien Boonma. Neta fills his soft hanging sculptures with spices such as saffron, cumin, clove and aniseed. Boonma was a devout Buddhist, a monk and used materials like perfume and spices in his work to draw attention to the fragility and impermanence of human life and the concept of the transcendental.

Ernesto Neto's Plateau of the Human Kind, 2001 comprises of thin sock like fabrics filled with spices

Detail of Ernesto Neto's work shows organic shapes and forms

Montein Boonma "Temple of the Mind" 1995

 Montein Boonma's Temple of the mind: Sala for the mind invites the viewer to enter and experience a visual, spatial and olfactory relationship with the work of art, which takes the form of a sacred enclosure. The stupa-like installation replicates a Buddhist pavilion (sala) that provides shelter from the natural elements and metaphorically promises refuge from life’s suffering. The interior of Temple of the mind: Sala for the mind, imbued with the fragrance of spicy pigments, is intended as a place of rest and contemplation.

Smell represents the  changeable, unstable disappearing fragile forms of these artists highlight the passage of time.