A leitmotif since his residency at Villa Medici in 1996-1997, the theme and title "Odore di Femmina" borrow from both Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" and Dino Risi's film "Parfum de femme". Initially conceived as rose paintings, these pieces have become busts of women in the antique style, of the "anadyomene" type with an interrupted movement of the arms. Johan Creten proceeds by a visual metonymy consisting in evoking the perfume of the female being by representing the flower, itself a symbol of the vulva, the receptacle. The work is particularly attractive for its classical beauty, the technical performance involved in the manual pastillage of all the roses. It also impresses by the expression of the fragility of existence and a certain fear of death.
"They are exactly like the way one breathes, like life which draws us towards others or drives us away from them, like the undefinable sensation of an aroma which allows an approach or enjoins a departure. They urge an uncharted journey through the significance of feelings." - Rosa Martinez