Part Two in the Asphalt Rainbow series on Street Art Technique & Olfaction takes a closer look at stencil art and the process of translating stencil design into fragrance. Often credited as the earliest known form of public art (the infamous handprints as stencils on cave walls), stencils today continue to have an important creative impact on our world thanks in part to daring outdoor installations by artists like Banksy and Blek le Rat. These compelling (and politically charged) works have helped inspire an entirely new crop of street art messengers in search of their own voices… and quite literally pushed me to the edge in crafting the final Asphalt Rainbow formula.
Stencil Art Background
“A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material.” (from Stencils)
In Part One of the series, we explored the world of Subtraction Art, discussing the silhouette as a simple one color example. Conveniently, this same silhouette example also serves as a perfect starting point for a deeper dive into the art of stencil making. In the image of the black rose above, if we carefully cut the rose from its white background, that rose shape can then be pasted onto another background as a silhouette. At the same time, if we preserve the background from the rose we cut, that rose void can now be used as a stencil to apply the rose shape to any surface desired, and in any color of our choosing. That void is a simple, one color, one layer stencil. Furthermore, if we cut this stencil from a stiffer material, like plastic or cardboard, the underlying image better maintains clean edges and borders from reproduction to reproduction. So each is a closer copy of original rose shape.
Early traditional stenciling examples include the Paleolithic cave paintings mentioned above, along with the low relief hieroglyph stencils uncovered inside Ancient Egyptian tombs, stencils found cut from banana and bamboo leaf and applied onto Fijian bark cloth… By the 18th and 19th centuries, stencil work had heavily invaded the worlds of decorative arts and fashion. Tapestries, dinnerware, home walls… Stencils were an easy way to add a touch of beauty and artistry to the everyday. Mining the archives from homes and clothes of the time opens up a treasure trove of stunning stencil patterns. Stenciling was of course a lower cost alternative to the more ornate handcrafted styles of carving and embroidery work that also took many more hours to complete. With stencils, art could be produced en masse – an evolution that would eventually spawn works like Warhol’s screen prints and other forms of Pop Art. After all, what is a silk screen but a section of silk prepared as a photographic stencil to create similar patterns on a canvas multiple times.
This ease of reproduction has also made stenciling ideal for use in political messaging. As mentioned, stencils provide increased speed and accuracy in creating easily repeatable patterns. If those patterns include political speech, the stencils transform into vehicles for propaganda… ready to be distributed and applied to any surface required. An image, a name, a slogan… at one time even some politicians’ signatures were just ink stencils (to save them from having to free form sign stack of correspondence letters). Of course, when I think of politics and stencils, I go back to my days of making campaign posters and banners when I ran for student government. Okay, maybe not quite the political statement of an Icy and Sot installation, but it demonstrates how each of us learn many of these skills early, and to what degree the form can be pushed. To me, that makes it quite a powerful and fascinating technique.
Street Art Stencils
Banksy, Jef Aerosol, Icy and Sot, Blek le Rat, Vhils, Above… these are just some of the people out on the streets today raising the bar for stencil graffiti around the globe. Why the choice of stencils? This is probably best understood by examining the situation surrounding the installation of a new street art piece. Since most of these installations are done on property not owned by the artist, and without the owner’s explicit permission, it can and does lead to brushes with the law. The more time spent installing the piece, the more likely for that interaction. Translation: the speed of stencils helps allow for a quick get in and get out when working. But, as you can see from some of the amazing detail in these artists’ work, this doesn’t necessarily come at the expense of creative design.
With outdoor stencil art there is also relative flexibility in the choice of painting materials. Work can be done by rolling, inking, or spraying the stencil; in other words, as long as it involves the use of fast drying materials. Compared to aerosol tags and murals, stencil art is also far less labor intensive to execute. As a form of street art, it is a much more accessible technique. While everyone making stencils may not be at the level of Vhils, they are not prevented from entering into the world because of a large technical know-how gap to overcome, especially when compared to the skills required to complete a large scale, free form, aerosol graphic.
And again, stencil are easily reproduced. They can be repeated on ever street corner and sidewalk from Brooklyn to the Bronx (if you can get away with it), each iteration relatively the same, made distinctive by their underlying surfaces and their differences in pigmentation. That’s because unlike machine produced stickers or posters, stenciling still requires the use of paint to complete the installation. Ultimately, choice of proper surface becomes a way to elevate the overall effects of the artwork. For these reasons, stencils remain an attractive choice amongst writers, especially when used for putting up non-commissioned work.
Crafting An Olfactive Rose Stencil
In describing Asphalt Rainbow, I have referenced this concept of a rose stencil at the heart of the fragrance: a structure designed to unfold in tandem with, but also independently from, the evolution of the rest of the olfactive composition. So a rose piece of the formula is applied back upon itself (and the rest of the fragrance) to skew the olfactive impression of that rose.
Designing this rose stencil began with picking apart stencil art technique as discussed above. In briefing, Cecile and I focused on five areas of examination of stencils to match the five points, namely:
- —the production of crisp, defined edges,
- —the use of multi-layering to produce the effects of depth, dimension, and shadow,
- —the role of thin plastics and aerosols in execution,
- —the flexibility of the surface for application
- —and, of course, the connections to political discourse.
The rose stencil is built on a backbone of a real rose, so the first step in building Asphalt Rainbow was establishing this initial rose accord. That very first rose we constructed was a little leathery, a little plummy… definitely more Turkish than Bulgarian… a bit dirty in profile, but very much a rose you would expect to find in nature. By doing this, we were establishing the edges of our rose stencil. This initial accord would now serve as a major reference point as we continued to formulate.
The next step involved incorporating this rose accord onto other olfactive urban surfaces. To do this, we started adding in the scent of asphalt and other industrial aromas to rough up the texture of that initial rose accord. This then became a back and forth process, reestablishing the edges of the initial rose accord using supporting rose materials – isolated molecules as straight lines and ingredients with elements in common with rose as blurs and flourishes – before roughing them up again with additional urban accents. In doing so, we began to add depth and color to the composition like adding new layers of aerosol paint.
With each round of this back and forth, we would simultaneously carefully twist this rose’s evolution, exaggerate or overemphasize certain pieces, play with its expected presence… in other words, we were changing its olfactive message. Finally, to complete this notion of flexibility in application synonymous with stencils, we began evaluating the fragrance across multiple surfaces, not just skin and blotter. The end result is a rose affixed, suspended, and armed with a very different message to tell. Asphalt Rainbow is anything but an expected rose thanks to the lessons taught by the art of stencil making.
More information about Asphalt Rainbow
Discover more about Street Art Techniques and Olfaction
Learn about the history of rose from Charenton Macerations’ #Roseshards Story
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