About

I am a sculptor based in San Francisco, California. I have a simple proposition: measurement is not merely quantification, but a declaration of intimacy, a desire for closeness.  The space between where one thing ends and another begins is simply a matter of scale, an edge which can be defined with advancing precision. 

My work always begins with a boundless course of observation, and ends in resolute compression.  In sculpture, I tend to work in metal and stone due to their density, and therefore their ability to hold an edge; but beneath the polished surface, there is a roiling, boiling interior comprised of every decision before it.

It is only fitting that the exacting methods of perfumery would inevitably become useful to me, in configuring vast, expansive qualities into emotionally legible objects of known density.  A perfume’s formula is a document subject to relentless calibration. The scale is a sovereign tool. 

Fragrance offers me one dimension that sculpture cannot : time.  An aroma can contain years of concentration but disappear within minutes. It can fit in your hand, but expand to fill a room.  It is a bottle of compressed clouds, a form which touches the wearer, but ultimately takes shape in their mind, perhaps the most intimate threshold of all.

The following are a suite of 12 fragrances that mark the wheel of time and will be released in three collections. Their construction combines ancient and modern perfumery techniques.  I grow or forage some of my raw materials to capture the unique terroir of the time and place they were made. I use a combination of high quality natural materials, as well as classic molecular workhorses to support the formula structurally.  Everything is formulated, blended, and bottled in-house. They are sold as part of a limited edition. Each bottle of a particular fragrance is 1 of 120. 

Somewhere between a clock, a calendar, and a compass, they contain simultaneously a day, a year, a lifetime.  Read in sequence, they trace an elemental myth of one’s life: an endless cycle of expansion and contraction.

EAST -> OFFERING -> LOST

SOUTH -> REALM -> FOUND

WEST -> RUIN -> ROUND

NORTH -> VISION -> RETURN

For Sculpture: kyliewhite.net