Reading recently an article by Luca Turin, I discovered that despite his passion to write about perfumes he had thought of quitting the writing. In the end after some consideration he might have thought why should I leave one of my dearest pleasures? Even if he felt saturated and overwhelmed by the success of his critiques and by the immense amount of releases in perfumery every year he continues writing more freely about what he loves.

The way to approach creativity under certain parameters of freedom is crucial in order to enjoy the pleasure of work and not to feel constrained by the interests which might compromise the honesty and the essence of what a particular practice means to a creator of any sort. This joyful, and sometimes painful freedom, has been defining Elena´s Narbutaitė career throughout the years.

I see Elena Narbutaitė like one of those proverbial “noses” of a perfumery house, an alchemist who might hold in her brain all the notes of time, from past to future, capturing the smell from “memoires”, colours, novel materials and forms that compose an extraordinary perfume. Nevertheless the perfume might be the result of a scientific process as well as of an emotional and intellectual one. Like a composer a “nose” recreates what he/she has in mind to reveal it to the world.

In an unconventional way Elena Narbutaitė delivers other kinds of scents. The ones which surround your senses like the aroma of an elixir but in the varying shape of a work of art.

Elena Narbutaitė uses intellectual properties of light like a composer uses notes to make a piece. The meaning is not open here, not at a first glance.  The work is like an encoded message and the key to enter is already in front of you.

Le Visage closes the cycle of the artist’s two previous exhibitions in the gallery (Joseph in 2016 and For a Soft Ass in 2022) by being also the only work in the show by the same name as the exhibition.

I´m not sure if Le Visage is the culmination of Elena´s work as a masterpiece. Pragmatically Le Visage is the latest addition to her oeuvre and if I was Luca Turin reviewing a perfume I would give Le visage an honouring 5 stars.