What Does Scent Look Like?

An interesting question, surely pretty hard to answer. Artist Zuza Mengham creates resin sculptures which try to translate scent. In a project she has been working on for Laboratory Perfumes she translates five fragrances into physical form. Amber, Gorse, Samphire, Tonka and Atlas, giving them form, colour and texture.

GorseIts fascinating stuff, Atlas for example is inspired by the Atlas mountains, I have actually driven through these a few years ago on a trip to Morocco. A landscape that appears barren and dark but can be so beautifully illuminated by the changing light. The fragrances she had to capture for Atlas were rum, vanilla and hay mixed in with those heady North African smells of cinnamon, ginger and black pepper. As the fragrance changes throughout the day it reveals different facets to the scent, Mengham’s sculpture mirror this in shape.

If I didn’t know what her project was about, these would still be mesmerising forms. Samphire looks like it is both universe and ocean. The scent’s original inspiration came from a young verbena leaf plucked from a friend’s garden on a spring afternoon!

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