Rauque courtesy of Roberto Greco

During the days of the pandemic, artist and photographer Roberto Greco found himself in a state of numbness, uncertain of the time ahead and feeling out of touch with the world around him, he refused to let the prohibitions of daily life suffocate him and turned to spontaneity and created a diversion to escape his thoughts. This led him to ‘Rauque’, a series of photographs that blends suspended compositions and captured portraits. The medium of photography alone couldn’t fully capture the essence of his concepts. Collaborating with master perfumer Christopher Sheldrake they created Rauque L’Objet parfumant, a sensory experience that brings his photographic series to life, dressing his works as he puts it.

 

Roberto Greco and Christopher Sheldrake art the Rauque exhibition courtesy of Roberto Greco

Roberto Greco’s fragrances are a captivating fusion of art, design, and scent. Each one packed with care in a limited edition of 500. His latest exhibition, of the same name Rauque was first shown at Nilsson & Chiglien Gallery in Paris, though you may have unknowingly come across his remarkable commercial work for various brands online and in print, but there’s something truly beautiful about the way he approaches and discusses his art. Personally, I’m an admirer of his artistic practice, it’s almost as if he embodies the soul of a poet, thinking and speaking more like a conceptual artist. In his latest collection, Rauque, he skillfully captures the essence of everyday objects, by showing them as abstract, soft focus, layered moments turning them into ethereal memories. It tells more of the subject that a single still image and through his lens, he manages to encapsulate the inherent beauty of perfume. Perfume, in its abstract form, becomes a realm of dreams, where photorealism may wow momentarily, although its art is really in the abstract, so that truly transports you to a space of contemplation and imagination, elevating the experience to new heights.

 

 courtesy of Roberto Greco©

The opening of Roberto Greco Rauque is complex and wild in to beautiful way, it’s like a swirl of memories conjuring an array of olfactive images that blur with my own memories of time and place. A sharp slightly urinous cassis green slowly softens into a blurred memory of crawling under blackberry bushes as a child, while bitter leafy greens purr with a wildness you can quite place until your older, there’s a beautiful animalic fur and feel of sensual darkness from the get go on my skin, as if the cassis’s s juices are seeping into the earth, revealing soft waxy mushroom aromas, all perched under a beautiful airy violet leaf, the cassis’ dirty purr slips away leaving hints, just a trace of its marked territory, as a balsamic twist turns the acrid green deliciously sweet with a honeyed floral aroma, almost like a wet violet that’s been dipped in cinnamon and myrrh.

Roberto Greco and Christopher Sheldrake

The interplay of the waxy mushroom and this fuzzy sweet green floral is rather intriguing, there’s something rather bodily about its aroma, especially as the animalic purr grows deeper. Soured green mossy narcissus forms this soft floral leather with a fruity ripe osmanthus, these floral notes have a dusty feel almost like pollen and are used brilliantly to soften the harder greens facets, darker woody ambers and polished leather notes. Rauque feels like a bodily landscape, one that’s developed over a lifetime, like supple leather made from nature. Rauque is also a perfume that doesn’t sit still, its constantly in flux, moving and creating subtle variations, after all the time stuck in one place, Rauque is moving for us, yet there’s something also Zen like, a method hidden in the dark, like some dusty incense simmering keeping all thoughts and memoires flowing in its soft dusty smoke.

Rauque and Publication courtesy of Roberto Greco

Beautiful earthy sour notes seep out of the sweet floral skin, just as the perfume weeps through Jonas Euvremer collaborative ceramic object in the Rauque exhibition. This weeping of the perfume is a beautiful moment where it feels like the memories of the materials and the memories of the artist are being distilled through a ceramic skin, slowly like life, filling a bottle and creating beauty from this slow death we all exist in. To wear a perfume is to wear the remains, or memories/essence of the natural materials on our skin, beautiful perfumes are celebrating them. Just like we remember though memories; we get built into these perfect slightly fuzzy accords, a soft focus of good and bad, but they’re the things that form us. They, the materials build this soft leather skin that purrs with carnal desires, the sweet decay of flowers, the flora and fauna, all these memories bottled drip by drip.” Rauque” from French translates to Hoarse, but for me it’s almost a play on words as this feels like a lost vintage green dusty leather riding perfume, the kind that oozes a wild refinement with a daring dirty elegance, an out of focus memory of fever dream of carnal desire on top of some heaving beasts. It’s a stunning collaboration between Roberto Greco and Christopher Sheldrake and is also one of my favourite perfumes of the year.

Notes: Blackcurrant bud, Violet leaf, Cassia absolute, Myrrh, Mushroom farm accord, Osmanthus absolute, Narcisse absolute, Pine tar, Leather, Ambrarome

Disclaimer: Sample of Roberto Greco Rauque was kindly sent to me by Roberto Greco. My opinions, as always, are my own and I will be buying a bottle. Yes, it’s that amazing.

–J @Wearescentient, Contributor

Thanks to the generosity of a team member, we are offering a sample of Roberto Greco Rauque to one registered reader in Europe, the U.K and the contiguous U.S. You must register here for your comment to count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what interested you about J Wearescentient’s review of Rauque and where you live. Draw closes 11/25/2023.

Available  to buy or sample at Jovoy Paris and Luckyscent

Please also enjoy former Senior Editor Emmanuelle Varron’s review of Porter Sa Peau which is a Top Ten Best of Scent of 2020 and  Lauryn Beer’s review of Oeilleres.

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