Why This Multi-Hyphenate Artist Is Adding Fragrance To His Oeuvre
The oeuvre of the Haiti born, Montreal based multi-hyphenate—with themes oft informed by the nature, culture and political landscape of his homeland—already encompasses painting, drawing, ceramics, and installation. Recent critically acclaimed shows include those at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami and Toronto Biennale.
The luxury niche fragrance market is growing exponentially. It was valued at $2.397 billion in 2024 according to Business Research Insights and is expected to reach $8.12 billion by 2033. This popularity can, perhaps be attributed to a consumer desire for individuality amidst a mass culture of homogenization. A recent example of the trend is Muse, YSL Beauty's latest edition to its exclusive Le Vestiaire des Parfums line with notable launches last year by Fendi, Rabanne and Valentino.
For Mathieu, the evolution of his artistic lexicon is rooted in history. 'Scent has been used for centuries by shaman to protect or to enhance reality," he said. "Artists are a type of shaman, both are working with the invisible.' His goal is to simultaneously "make people feel more than who they are" and 'more themselves.'
Crafted in the French fragrance heartland of Grasse, the three scents—île noire, ECCCO, and Dsire—have been two years in the works. While deeply personal, drawing inspiration from his Haïtan identity as with much of his work, they also convey ideas that are universally relatable.
île noire, the first fragrance, recalls childhood memories of jasmine wafting through the half-open window of his sister's bedroom in Haiti, alongside marine adjacent ambergris accord and earthy tobacco.
With its top notes of black lemon and tumeric, woody heart of patchouli, sandalwood, and vetiver and base of leather and vanilla, the second fragrance, ECCCO evoking notions of transformation and resilience, is inspired by the aftermath of a volcanic eruption.
Dsire, the third of the trio, a heady bouquet of jasmine, frangipani and tuberose, atop ylang-ylang and a voluptuous base of vanilla and musk connotes sensuality and seduction.
Karagueuzoglou is also the nose behind household names like Yves Saint Laurent Tuxedo, Rabanne's Phantom and Charlotte Tilbury's emotion boosting Magic Energy.
Over coffee at Kwerk Paris, part of the new wave of luxury co-work and wellness clubs springing up across the city, Mathieu described their working relationship: 'We really managed to create a space of sharing and vulnerability, finding ways to complete each other."
"The perfume became a kind of residue of what we lived together, ' he added
Thus far the art world has leveraged fragrance as a mechanism to amplify the way that works are experienced by the senses, like recent 'Scent & the Art of the Pre-Raphaelites' in Birmingham in the U.K. and exhibition featuring depictions of scented gloves turned permanent showcase at Madrid's Museo del Prado in Spain. Both of these harnessed Puig's AirParfum dry diffusion technology to add an extra dimension to paintings by Antonio Moro and John Everett Millais.
Having previously toyed with the idea of training to become a nose himself, the initial meeting with Karagueuzoglou in 2022 took place when Mathieu was in Paris for an artistic residency at Cité Internationale des Arts. While he acknowledged that his first idea had been to create just such an olafactic experience for a show, the project soon evolved.
Rather than representing an additional layer of experience, it's now his fragrance compositions themselves that constitute the work he said. 'The fragrance is the work. It stands on its own.'
Even the flaçons have been crafted from a clay sculpture hand-molded by the artist, who counts ceramics as part of his oeuvre. The organic design recalls a mountain which another nod Mathieu's homeland. Haiti means 'land of high mountains' in the indigenous Taíno language.
Manuel Mathieu Chapter 1 scents are available on pre-order as of this week with the official launch scheduled for the summer.
However, this olefactory triptych is only the beginning. When we met in March, work on the next chapter was already underway and the artist shared five iterations of the newest composition fresh from the fragrance lab at IFF.
Artist Manuel Mathieu.
Manuel Mathieu.
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