When art meets scent: Studio Marianne Guély inaugurates collaboration with Symrise

Coinciding with Paris Design Week, fragrance house Symrise and paper artist and designer Marianne Guély unveiled their collaboration at an event at Symrise’s L’Appartement Etoile just off the Champs Elysées on September 7^th. Intended to forge greater links and create synergies between art and scent, Guély’s nature-inspired artwork took center stage along with the six scents composed by six of Symrise’s perfumers.

Alabaster collected in Tuscan quarries and fields is"incrusted like mushrooms on a tree trunk" ©Studio Marianne Guély

"This is a true collaboration between Studio Marianne Guély and Symrise perfumers. We called on Marianne not only because her works are world-renowned, but because her poetic, sensorial, and dreamlike universe echoes the values and inspirations of Symrise’s creations," Thomas Lalague, Vice President Creation Fine Fragrance EMEA, said as he introduced the partnership.

Guély also took to the stage to explain her artistic creation: an "imaginary plant" designed to inspire the perfumers. With a fallen cedarwood trunk sourced in Normandy as the starting point, Guély says that she began by scarifying Indian paper and using copper pastels to create a "faux galvanization" effect. Alabaster collected in Tuscan quarries and fields was "incrusted like mushrooms on a tree trunk" into the branch, before being decorated with paper peony flowers.

Unveiled at an event at Symrise’s L’Appartement Etoile, the "imaginary plant" was designed to inspire the perfumers ©Studio Marianne Guély

Unleashing perfumer creativity

Lalague paid tribute to the "creative spirit" of perfumers Alexandra Carlin, Emilie Coppermann, Pierre Guéros, Alienor Massenet, Suzy Le Helley and Isaac Sinclair.

Alexandra Carlin’s fragrance, Irving Petals, was inspired by Guély’s description of "exploding peonies" in relation to her sculpture, as well as the still life images of American photographer Irving Penn and the flowers of painter Georgia O’Keefe.

In Guély’s work, Emilie Coppermann saw the portrait of a woman, which was the starting point for Sortilège, a fragrance with woody and floral notes.

With Géant de Papier, Pierre Guéros imagined a fantastical world and a magical forest, with moss, a pot-bellied mushroom, a fern leaf and purple heather. His fragrance is created around an almost acidic, crunchy green note.

Perfumer Suzy Le Helley was inspired by the hybridization between different materials, shapes and textures. Her scent Hybride is constructed around a woody and mineral base, with notes of incense and mushroom. The flower is imagined as a hybrid of multiple flowers.

Isaac Sinclair’s fragrance is called Above and Beyond: the perfumer saw in Guély’s work the paradox of something imaginary made tangible. His scent is described as "augmented nature", with woody notes transcended in a floral dimension.

Lastly, Alienor Massenet explains that she constructed her scent, Isiscus, as Guély created her sculpture. "A cedarwood essence with a woody Symrise captive was added to hibiscus to provide color, while a magnolia note recalls the flowers on the sculpture," Massenet told Formes de Luxe. Ambrette seed is a top note. "Ambrette flower adds a spicy note and the seed is rather rare, like this work of art!"

An exchange between artists

Speaking to Formes de Luxe about the project, Lalague noted that this is the first time Symrise has done a partnership like this with an artist and multiple perfumers. "We asked Marianne to create something to spark perfumer creativity; rather than being inspired by the finished piece alone, they followed the genesis of the project, including Marianne’s own inspiration and how the creation of the piece progressed."

The idea going forward, said Lalague, is "to continue to nourish this exchange between creatives, as it’s quite different for perfumers to work with an artist as compared to working with a marketer or a brand. The have a pure vision of the creation without thinking in business or commercial terms". Massenet confirmed this analysis: "We follow our heart!"

So what will become of the scents created? "It’s about creation feeding creation. One day a perfumer could be working on a project and something could spark a memory of this exercise, which could lead to them reinterpreting their scent," says Lalague. "Or one could become Studio Marianne Guély's olfactive signature," joked the artist. “With six fragrances, we are spoiled for choice!"

The fragrance and the artwork will be on display by invitation only at L’Appartement Etoile until the end of September.