Van Oosten’s installation, The Ripening of Mangosteen: A Scent Offering in Fragments, is markedly different to the others featured in the exhibition. Visitors won’t see a physical artwork; instead they are led into a chamber where they can play with several atomisers filled with essences extracted from seaweed, charred seashells and firewood, calamansi and white flowers, incense woods and uprooted mangroves that were collected from the village of Shek O on the southeastern coast of Hong Kong Island after the typhoon.
“It’s an ecological way of creating art. The idea is for people to turn on and off the diffusers to create a scent that actually ripens as the exhibition continues. I want them to reconnect to the intangible and the power of nature,” says Van Oosten, who will host a talk and scent lab on September 5 and September 6 respectively.
To call the Los Angeles native a perfumer would be misleading, although she did start her career creating customised scents for the Hollywood elite almost 15 years ago. As a student of Japanese literature, she became fascinated with fragrance, and the cultural traditions and rituals that surround it. In her early twenties she experienced personal health problems which led her to explore different healing methods including essential oils.
“One thing I have never been is a perfumer. I am not part of that tradition, because I haven’t studied chemicals. I trained as an aromatherapist and started doing botanical blends for people.
“I became fascinated with rare oils, which led me to India, where I studied alongside an organic perfume chemist to learn how to put fragrances together while also respecting the cultural significance of plants,” she says.
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It was a project for actress Julianne Moore – who commissioned her to create an ambient scent for the green room at the Oscars – that inspired Van Oosten to launch her first line of fragrances under her brand L’Oeil du Vert. The scents – which are distilled in her workshop in Malibu, California – come in a series of stunning atomisers crafted from rare woods.
She also makes scents for personal spaces, from yachts and offices to private homes. Her client list ranges from hospitality groups such as the Four Seasons and museums such as LACMA to fashion retailers including Bergdorf Goodman in New York and the Faena Bazaar in Miami. More recently she has designed artworks and conceptual pieces that explore the olfactory world.
While Van Oosten relishes new challenges, she says the most exciting part of her craft continues to be sourcing raw materials. It has led her as far afield as Alaska for wild yarrow and Peru for copal (a type of tree resin) and to Oman for frankincense. This task, however, has become more challenging because the effects of climate change and what she calls the “McDonaldification” of the oil and perfume industries.
“With this type of work you are at nature’s mercy. Things disappear and people don’t understand that. There’s no blue lotus this year, or neroli from Morocco as it’s too hot this summer. People have to understand that the world we are living in is shifting, and this is what I want to tap into with my installations.
“But while it’s more difficult to find materials, it makes my work more fun. It forces me to do what I do in a different way. The oils coming into my world are so precious that sometimes it’s hard to use them. You can’t put a price on nature,” she says.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Installation on the scent of typhoon devastation
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