Odour

The obvious smell associated with my work is that of melting wax. As it is a highly refined petroleum wax this is not a romantic smell in the way that beeswax can be. The smell of my working process is the smell of the city, of diesel fumes, of tarmac in sunshine.

If do have a favourite smell-association with my work it is that of the morning after… Entering the studio early, the day after a heavy burst of activity and before the city noises have really started, the usual studio smells have faded overnight. Molten wax has cooled on paintings and the wooden floor, is less like the stinging smell of polution and more like a pleasant memory of hard work. The nature of wax means that my pieces do not carry a smell for a number of years as would an oil painting, so this moment of moderated odour on mornings where I look hard for the successes and failures in the previous day’s work is a clear olfactory memory like of my mother baking bread when I was child.

Andrew Bick
2001