Invisible Friend

A dime for your wishes, a coin in my bed
You’re still in my head, my invisible friend

Song by LIZOT, Max & Johann, and Paradigm

Invisible Friend is an art presentation I created that consists of 3 drawings, 3 scent compositions and 1 scent workshop. It was on display at the independent group exhibit PoP-Up organized by Amsterdam art collective Open-Oost at the Dokzaal. The Dokzaal is located in the heart of Amsterdam. This former church hall was built in 1872 and has, among other things, served as a printing house. Later it was used as a gymnasium of a technical school. In 2010 the hall was completely renovated to its former glory
The Pop-Up exhibition took place at the Dokzaal from 17 till 25 June 2023 in Amsterdam.

Scent Compositions

Three scent compostions in glass bell jars, placed on 3 hand drawn ink-drawings on paper. Visitors are invited to contemplate on the scents and to look at visual art while smelling.

Scent1 – Invisible Friend
A fragrance created for the century-old house of a dear friend. Through the fragrance, I connect
the green garden in which apple trees stand with the antique wooden interior of the large house. Green fresh apple facets, woods, geranium ,patchouli and an amber accord play an imporant part in the fragrance. I made Invisible Friend so that it can find a place both inside the house and in the surrounding garden – outside and inside are thus connected.

Scent 2- Wrap Your Arms Around Me!
Wrap You Arms Around Me! Is a scent composition inspired by my upbringing in the Netherlands and the scents and flavors from the country of my Indonesian mother . What scents play an important role in your life? Warm spices and lush flowers are scents that portray the leading roles in Wrap Your Arms
Around Me! .

Scent 3 – Now I Know You Know
A relationship that is over-and moving forward with fresh courage. I used facets of frankincense
and pine in this fragrance because these scents energize me. Now I Know You Know is a scent compostition inspired by the power of saying goodbye.

Drawings

Too Tender To Touch 30×30 cm, Gouache, pencil, ink and aquarel op paper. 2019
A Kiss To wake Us From Our Sleep 30×30 cm, Gouache , inkt, potlood.aquarel op paper.2019
Heart Above My Head 30×30 cm , Gouache, ink, pencil, aquarel op paper. 2021

Visitors are invited to take one the 3 scented glass bell jars in their hands and smell it as they look at the drawings. Will your perception of the visuals change if you change the scented bell jar for another one?

My drawings are about connection, tenderness and identity-and inseparable from that is scent;
with each drawing I smell a scent when I create the work, and so colors and shapes, emotion come to me. Scent functions as an invisible portal to my visual world.

Create Your Invisible Friend- scent workshop

Smell is all around us; it determines how we feel and we can communicate with it. A scent can comfort and cheer us up. Scent is like an invisible companion. The main focus in the workshop is to let participants focus on their emotions and associations when smelling each raw material. I created a list with numbered ingredients and everyone was asked to smell in silence and write down their feelings and thoughts on each separate ingredient. Is it a positive smell? Something dandy? Do you feel happy or perhaps a little sad? Once we started creating, the names of the ingredients were revealed to the participants.I wanted people to already have thought about their connection to the ingredient before even using it.

What are we going to do?
In the Dok Room we are going to carefully smell a number of fragrance ingredients to create a scent with them: Get inspired and create your “invisible friend” that you can spray on your pillow or around the house whenever you feel the need for a nice fragrant companion. Will it be a cool scent? A funny scent? Or something really quiet and serene? And what name will you come up with?
You will receive a 5ml bottle of your creation. Your own invisible friend! ( excerpt from press release )

creating a scented friend

Exit Through The Gift Shop: a small batch of 20 bottles containing 30ml of the Invisible Friend scent composition was offered at a special price at the Pop-Up exhibition artists gift shop .

Thanks to: Renee Visser, Annindriya, Arnoud van den Heuvel and Josje Crince La Roy from Open-Oost. Photography by Mieke Welling, Ellen van der Horst, Joyce van den Engel & Chester Gibs.