The Rope

Something ancient and slow burns at the center of this one, like an ember buried under years of accumulation.

Cassia arrives first — a bark-warm spice, not sweet so much as sharp and dry, the kind that clings to old wood and cloth. Rose surfaces briefly, pulled off-course from anything delicate, folded instead into the smoky depth of agarwood and the cool shadow of sandalwood. Patchouli keeps everything low and earthy, while tonka smooths the edges without softening the story. What's left is something textured and patient — a slow burn that doesn't show off, doesn't ask for anything. It simply stays, the way certain things do.

Joe Merrell has been making video, animation, print and sculpture for exhibition in galleries and museums in the US and Europe for more than fifteen years. Eyes Are Always There began as the website for a single bottle and the artwork around a Los Angeles installation about UFOs and alien abduction, made with Christopher Gordon of Maison Anonyme.

That first one asked what a close encounter smells like, and answered it from what people who report them describe, referencing technology and biology both. It treated an overlooked part of the phenomenon as material. The fragrances have stayed inside the art practice rather than beside it: two of them were made for a multimedia art show at the Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles. They are produced in limited runs, in small batches.