The Art Of ROADS: A Gallery Of Fragrance
ROADS is a unique and experimental fragrance brand, but what truly sets it apart is its creative presentation. Each perfume in their extensive collection is matched with a unique artwork that founder Danielle Ryan personally curates to visually represent each composition of notes.
Once selected, the artwork is then displayed on the otherwise understated packaging, and included again as a little card inside the box.
The ‘Art of ROADS’ is credited to independent artists the world over, spanning a range of materials and media, from photography & digital design to traditional paint & textile printing.
In this article, we delve deeper, and highlight the creative minds behind four Roads Fragrances now available through Lusso Collective.
Core Collection — ART ADDICT — Artist SERGEY TOLMACHEV
An alumnus of the Academy of Photography in Moscow, Sergey Tolmachev is a professional photographer living and working in Russia.
Tolmachev is best known for his innovative water sculptures, of which he is the absolute creator, both orchestrating and capturing colourful, unpredictable details that are too fine for the human eye to see in real time.
He ‘grows’ a drop of water with a special nozzle of his own design, releases it, then shoots its dynamic evolution using high-speed macro photography that transforms it into bizarre, dreamlike shapes, from jellyfish & mushrooms to burgeoning clouds, like the one depicted on ROADS’ Art Addict fragrance.
Core Collection — CLOUD 9 — Artist BEV GOODWIN
Bev Goodwin is a multimedia artist living and working in Auckland, Aotearoa — Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand). It’s fitting, then, that her artwork be selected to represent ROADS’ Cloud 9 fragrance.
Studying Fine Arts in Italy, where she began with watercolours, ink, paint and collage, Goodwin now makes use of found, recycled and unusual materials to mimic nature, exploring the line between the natural and the artificial.
Frequently working with public installations and other outdoor projects, her work is an artist’s commentary on our collective actions surrounding environmental issues and the effects of mass consumerism.
Her works are held in collections across Europe, England, China, USA, Australia and New Zealand.
Africa Collection — PAST | PRESENCE — Artist YAW TONY
YAW Tony (‘You Are Wonderful’) is a talented artist, architect, illustrator and graphic designer based in Canada. His art has been exhibited in Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Atlanta, Austin, and his native Toronto.
Reminiscent of the “Ankara” fabrics, which reflect dynamic African culture, his provocative use of colour earns him well-deserved recognition and makes his artwork a fitting match to ROADS’ Past | Presence fragrance. Tony says, “All colours complement with each other, you just have to know what you are doing.”
Working with designers including Alexander Wang and the late Virgil Abloh, Yaw Tony’s own textile label LLiM has collaborated with the likes of Adidas, Nike and Bang & Olufsen to create fabric prints featured on luxury footwear, accessories and speakers.
Africa Collection — DIGITAL DAZE — Artist CARLO D’ORTA
Carlo D’Orta captures the interplay between geometry and light in a photographic career spanning over 40 years, predominantly dedicated to architecture and surrealism.
Having studied at the Rome University of Fine Arts, with a Master’s in Photography from Milan’s IED Institute, Orta has developed a style that focuses on lines, intersections and unusual perspectives.
His works create a dialogue of light, shape and colour that offer an almost biological interpretation of man-made structures. It mirrors the rapid expansion of modern Asia — making it an ideal choice for ROADS to pair with their Digital Daze fragrance.
“My art is above all a search for the synthesis, the essential forms, the geometric combinations produced by the overlapping and interweaving of architectural structures that populate our cities.” — Carlo Orta
Orta has presented multiple solo exhibitions around the world, with notable shows including 2015’s Beyond The Lens in Venice and a 2017 feature in the National Museum of Singapore.
At Lusso Collective
The works of these four creatives and the ROADS perfumes they have been paired with — Art Addict, Cloud 9, Past | Presence, and Digital Daze — are available now in our online boutique, along with a host of other ROADS fragrances featuring yet more independent artists.
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