Esencias 05

vas, to impregnate it with color instead of
covering it with layers of color, in the same
way that perfume impregnates the air.
The color l chose -green- relates to the
sensation of freshness. the countryside
and nature just as with the greenish yellow
color of lavender water.
In order to give the sensation of freshness
and space, it suited me not to load
the surface with excessive torms, rather to
leave free space that attempts to sugget
something so ínapprenhensible as an
aroma.
By way of contrast, in the central part
and wíth a somewhat thicker texture,
there appear spots of violet, an allusion to
the flower of lavender. These spots constitute
the rhythmic element of the work inspired
by the rhythm of lavender leaves and
flowers in movement from the wind and
are - like the rest of the painting- flooded
with green, thus forming, all tiogether, a
total unity in the same way that we find
different suggestions in one single unity in
the perfume.
Míguel Rasero
Brief note on my nose
I don't recali exactly when it was I started
to realize that my nose wasn't functioning
properly. Of course, it was a long
tíme ago, but even so the memory of 'my
smells' goes back almost to my earlíest
days and the range of samples ít has províded
me with, íf not very extensíve, has
certainly been significant.
I have suffered from sinusitis and
allergy for years, which has not prevented
my nose from having some spectacular
moments; not only that but, on account of
its deficiency, when my respiration does
work it penetrates ríght inside me, and
makes itself felt as sweetly and melodiously
as one of the majestic riches of
nature and when it allows itself to be
accompaníed by smell it makes the olfactive
sense the most precious gift o f ...
Josep M. Riera i Aragó
Boat is he re the idea of a joumey in the
sense travelling on a flowing líquid at a
slow pace; a pace that allows you to
observe things as íf it were they that were
moving rather than you. lt has something
of the ritual, ceremonious boat. I associate
the smell of tea with trave!. lt is the smell
of arriving where people are, the smell of
the offering. For me it is a smell directly
linked with Africa, with the Atlas and the
Berber tribes, with purity and primitivism.
The tea is in a chest, situated in the very
heart of the boat, made especially to contain
it, with the same golden tone as the tea.
Agustí Roqué
Silent streets, mute, indifferent, walked
by relatives and fríends, where a quiet privacy
is maintained like a bucolic poetry.
Perfumed with the fragrances of a laurel, a
cypress or a bunch of chrysanthemums.
The synthesis of a whole long trajectory
which takes in many experiences and an
infinity of different smells is what is common
to the works in the series Silent
Move, and in particular the sculpture
Going my way (a title as paradoxical as the
work itself), and cemeteries. A recovery ot
the lorry crates which are left immobile in
rejection, the last resting-place of death
and everything that surrounds transit is
what Roqué has effected in thinking of
silence as a universal feeling. lt is, in a way,
the history of the world of cargo, of the
transporting of different quantities of
things from one side of life to another. lt is
a lyrical work with an emotive response
and, like every great work, it invites us to
reflect and to think about different types
of cargo and the maximum variations relating
to smells: the smell of iron, the smell
of wood, the smell of asphalt, the smell of
merchandise and many more.
The cold air of steel, comparable to that
of the angels on the cenotaphs, contrasts
with the perfume given off by the trees,
whose wood has been used torm part of the
sculpture. Its tense and rounded for suggests
an infinity of aromas according to the
experience and sensibility of the spectaor.
We may accept that Going my way
enters into us by sight and touch, but we
cannot deny its olfactive pleasure. And
smell is, aesthetically and physically, a very
perceptive pleasure, not simply because of
what it suggests of its former content, but
also because of its intrinsic matter. We can
change the names ot things, but their perfume,
their essence, does not alter; thus
Shakespeare, when he tells us that «A rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.»
Agustí Roqué I Rosa Escayola
Baruj Salinas
Nostalgia for the country where I was
born has led me to work in recent years on
themes related to the geography and the
flora of Cuba.
lsla de Piños, the lsland of Pine Trees,
is a small key which lies to the south of
Cuba, just below the province of
Havana. The pine trees found on the
island gave it its name. There is always a
gentle breeze which stirs the innumerable
pines and which, mixing the fine
aroma of cool greenery with the salty air
from the sea, creates the illusion of eternal
spring.
Baruj Salinas. Miami, December 1994
Antonío Saura
Certainly, a springtime series, despite
the obscure backgrounds. Delights of a
perfumed garden, where the seent of jasmine
and roses mix with the Proustian
aroma of printing ink.
Sean Scully
I remember perfectly my second exhibition
with David McKee in New York en
1982: it consisted of six large, tremendously
physical. I was working on them right up
until the last week.
The smell given off by the paintings
was as good as the way they looked. lt
was like walking through a canyon ot deep
colours, with the essence ot the oil paint
filling the whole gallery.
An exhibition wíth everythíng: sound,
touch, sight, smell.
Soledad Sevilla
Evoking is part of the melancholy
memory: Mark Rothko or Kaspar David
Friedrich seem to renounce everything in
their painting, except a luminous and nostalgic
void. The aromas, as íncorporeal
energy, cause us to leave behind the world
of human dimensions and reasons and
índuce in us, as in the paintings of Rothko
or Fríedrich, this melancholy state.
Perfume of lilacs which every spring
ínvaded my studío through the open window.
.J
!
José M. Sicília
Fragment for José M• Sicília
Darkness impregnated wíth light. Chink
ot dreaming opening in the night, like a
spark of life which sets light to the undulating
matter of nothingness. Buzzing of
insects around the flame. Vegetable perfume
flowing from the centre to the límit of
the senses. Here the colour is the absence
of colour and sound the absence ot sound.
Nocturnal mirror, living matter at the precise
instant when the word fiares up.
Susana Solano
A. Tàpies Barba
The smell and its character are transformed
into rumours of time, and under this
inferred sensation the beauty is gradually
dissipated: the memory ot a confidential
moment.
Antoní Tàpies
My mother was everything to me in my
chíldhood years and throughoout almost
all of my adolescence. In her I found all of
the qualitíes, all of the instinctive protections
that children seek in the feminine
sweetnesses of those who engendered
them. Even her smell seemed to calm me
when I was frightened or excited. And
even today, when some perfume that
reminds me of hers reaches me, I feel once
again that sensation of beatitude that her
embraces and the warmth of sitting on her
lap used to produce in me. So strong was
the suggestive power of that smell that I
recali following, as an adult, in a moment
of loneliness and sadness, for some time
through the streets of Paris a lady who
exuded the same perfume as my mother.
From the book by the artist:
Memòria personal (Personal memoir)
Darío Urzay
The torms which appear in the foreground,
crossing the canvas, possess a
movement that has been detained.
Between these forms and the background
is a piece of camouflage netting of the
kind used by naturalists and hunters to
blend in with the surrounding landscape in
a particular region of the United States.
The only sense we can utilize when confronted
with this landscape is sight. Sound
has disappeared, olfactive sensations
appear as «non-smell». tactile sensations
vanish before the smooth, shiny layer of
resin.
Eternalizing an instant involves losing
the ephemeral, but also activating the
memory.
Juan Uslé
I went out into the garden and walked
towards the swimming pool. I dived in. By
the instant, the liquld was becoming denser,
more difficult to move through. I
heard that crack! and I woke up. I was sitting
on the rail of the bridge, with my
hands linked together at the back of my
neck and day was beginning to dawn. I
had no idea how long I had been immersed
in that lethargy, or even if I had closed
the door ot the studio.
What do dreams smell of?
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