« On Creten’s torsos covered in roses, odor becomes a distant reference ; a sensation alluded to by metonymy, displacement and substitution. The warm fragrance of flowers becomes the metallic sheen of ceramics ; the enveloping wash of their perfume is suggested by the organic undulations of the clay petals. Odor is absent from his work, but Johan Creten reconstucts it through a delicate and malevolent play on associations. He alludes to the weight and density of the sea-mother odor (la mer- la mère, in French)- by using torsos covered in roses. From a distance the dark color and incrustations suggest mussel shells and the darkness and glow of the female sexual organ thereby creating primeval reflections on the origins of life. »
Rosa Martínez, "Johan Creten. Odore di Femmina", cat. exp., Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1998, page 11.