What do i smell like, as lately?

Is Miguel Matos an artist that transforms the visual into olfactive, shaping figures as molecules?

La Piscine. Don't dive in if you are expecting just an aquatic. This more like a tank hanging on a wall to be admired by those understanding uncanny art. Experimental is how Miguel describes it. I'd say a step away from past's reality, a jump into the imaginary. La Piscine is washed childhood memories in chlorine dreams. The odor of a communist swimming pool takes over to sensorially pulling my head underwater into a poverty contrasting the all-covered in 24k gold mosaic interior pool of the ruler and the abundance of his entourage. The myth of being poor but happy in a world of cages and limitations was preserved in moldy walls, green waters, dark soil, wet-hair and chlorine skin and it floats in La Piscine unbothered by the pass of time. I can see it on the wall.

Doraphilia. My grandmother, Dida, was a woman ahead of her times. Orphan at an early age, she grew up in her grandmother's house separated from her beloved sister. She started to work really young and by 20s she was already a trustful secretary at the local mill. Married in her 30s, with two kids by 35 and a house built from the scratches togheter with my grandfather, my grandmother was, besides our constant, the greatest example of glamour we had. She did it all her way. Her beauty was simple, unpretentious, free of any extra embellishment - the only accessory for makeup she ever used was a green lipstick which turned red every time it touched her lips and cheekbones. The Nivea cream was a necessity for her astonishingly unwrinkled skin. She loved flowers - everything she touched smelled like a garden in spring, i used to believe her body breathed out the most sensual concoction of a floral bouquet. I loved dressing up as her. Opening the doors to her 1800s armoire was stepping into a different world, another era. Her brown leather jacket was covering the small size me engaging a play with my imagination into a "the servants lift her highness' train" and other stories. Naphtalene (mothballs) and an ethereal cleanness covered the room with an invisible cloak. All of Dida's jewelry decorated my neck from the chin to the belly and the lobes of the ears were hanging under the weight of her clip-on earrings. A wonderful floral accord sticked to the old leather jacket delicately impregnated my skin for days as a see-through veil always awaiting for the next charge of animalic (plus wet) and floral harmony.
Her skin on mine in the most humanly-way possible.

Burnt Flower. Tuberose. It makes me think of Nuit de Bakélite by Naomi Goodsir taking out the vegetal part, two thirds of the smoke, the grease and replacing the bakélite with another type of plastic. A very well archived grapefruit accord - bitter, citrusy and dressed up in a sweet spiciness - opens the door to the floral central-piece dominated by the tuberose. I get the same mothballs as in Doraphilia "enriched" with acetone, but warmer and more aromatic. The tuberose seems trapped in a cube of wood and latex on fire. Surrounded by smoke it plays its card on lactonic whiffs and animalic mumblings. Leather wins the game in a soft, unintrusive style.

Tar. Disturbing. Intense. Dark. Harsh. Sweet licorice infused in burnt caramel and fur. Metallic hues of aromatic greeness cross the heart leaving behind traces of bitterness and earth. It feels like dancing on hot steams on a freshly poured coal-tar pitch built-up rooftop.

Each Picasso has its own admirers.