putre-factio by Eli Diez

odorous molecules | 50mL | Edition of 1

uncovers the essence of the most beautiful flowers in their most rotten appearance

artist statement:

Death is nature. The most beautiful flowers, and the healthiest bodies, go through putrefaction. ‘‘putrefactio’’ is an alchemical process found in several manuscripts, in which organic matter dies becoming a black ash, it is carried out not by the action of an external fire, but by the mater's own internal fire, its essence.

This bottle has the essences of the most beautiful and coveted flowers, but with their most rotten appearance, which is also part of our body. The same molecules that they exhale when they die or become compost for the soil, we excrete alive and exhale when we die. According to Antoine-Joseph Pernety in his 18th century mythohermetic dictionary, “putrefaction is so effective that it destroys the old nature and the form of the putrefied body, which by it is transmuted into a new form of being, making it produce a fruit entirely new."

This aroma is my vision of life--death--resurrection concepts, my way of extracting the last breath of flowers in techniques such as enfleurage. Instead of throwing the flowers away once withered in the ‘‘corps’’ (fat), i capture with spirits (alcohols) their indolic molecules, so precious in perfumery art.