Perfume Paintings
1987-Present
I first used perfume as a paint substitute beginning in 1987. Then,
as now, I wanted some way to mark a positive absence, that is, a way to show that something once present, but now vanished, has left behind a trace or a marker, as a person's scent or perfume lingers on after they leave a room. Perfume eludes the visual and because it can only be experienced as smell the work is in most ways both engaged,
and completed only by the viewer/owner who becomes the agent for the works completion. Perfume then symbolizes the quality of
"otherness" that surrounds the art object and becames a trope for all the ways in which certain things, or systems act upon us without our awareness, subtly and invisibly as the air we breathe. Below are some of the different forms for the Perfume works over the past twenty years.
1987-Present
I first used perfume as a paint substitute beginning in 1987. Then,
as now, I wanted some way to mark a positive absence, that is, a way to show that something once present, but now vanished, has left behind a trace or a marker, as a person's scent or perfume lingers on after they leave a room. Perfume eludes the visual and because it can only be experienced as smell the work is in most ways both engaged,
and completed only by the viewer/owner who becomes the agent for the works completion. Perfume then symbolizes the quality of
"otherness" that surrounds the art object and becames a trope for all the ways in which certain things, or systems act upon us without our awareness, subtly and invisibly as the air we breathe. Below are some of the different forms for the Perfume works over the past twenty years.
Perfume Site (Perfume Rundown)
Perfume poured on partially stretched linen
72 x 36 inches
1987
Perfume Site: Untitled (L'Air du Temps)
Perfume on linen
60 x 48 inches
1987
Perfume Site: Untitled (Double Scrim)
Perfume on canvas with scrim and perfume bottle
2 panels each 36 x 72 inches
1988
Perfume Site: Untitled (Double Scrim) seen installed on rear wall
Perfume on canvas with scrim and perfume bottle
2 panels each 36 x 72 inches
1988
Perfume Site: Untitled (Perfume case)
Handmade wooden case with linen panel and perfume bottle
@ 14" x 20" x 4"
1988
Perfume Site: Untitled (Piece B)
Perfume on linen
2.5 m x 2.0 m
1993
Perfume Site: Untitled (Piece C) opened
Perfume on canvas with cardboard box
Dimensions closed @ 12" x 12"x 12"
1993
Perfume Site: Untitled ( Small green, black, and red)
Fabrics and foil on canvas with perfume
20 x 16 inches
2000
Perfume Wall
Linen, wax, with perfume
dimensions variable
2000
Click on image to enlarge
Perfume Site: ( D4)
Holographic foil, fabric, and perfume on canvas (with perfume bottle)
80" x 60"
1992
Click on image to enlarge
