Category: Art

A triptych of cyanotypes from Anna Atkins’s Photographs of British Algae presents three seaweed specimens—large marine algae—rendered as white silhouettes against deep blue. From left to right: Cystoseira ericoides, Sargassum bacciferum, and Cystoseira granulata. Their forms grow increasingly dense and intricate, while faint handwritten labels quietly anchor the images in scientific taxonomy.

Blue Blades, Blue Times * Poems by Gabriella Garofalo * Cyanotypes by Anna Atkins

aromatica poetica April 28, 2026

To P. Are words partners in crime with life? A heated argument going on, While the rough wild sea can’t wait For souls to dive in and on no accounts Can flowers rise- No funny ghosts, but real wrath and hunger If over here, away to the left, In the lane alongside your fields, Maudlin ballads or garish sunsets keep shouting At full blast that life is wonderful, the trick of blue gamblers- But hush now, look, hope and desire …

“Petri Dish Emotions” is a vibrant, collage-like composition that fills the frame, structured around four large circular forms resembling petri dishes or cells. Each circle contains layered spirals and fragments of cut paper—snippets of printed text with phrases such as: “A Wild Love,” “connect,” “research,” “deep time”, and organic shapes—arranged in swirling motions. The background is densely textured with crayon or pastel marks in green, yellow, pink, and blue, creating a sense of energetic movement between the circles. Smaller circular cutouts scatter across the surface, especially in the lower right, adding rhythm and variation. The overall effect is playful yet intricate, evoking microscopic life, growth, and interconnected systems.

“Petri Dish Emotions” & “Eating Emotions” * Art & Poetry * Janina Aza Karpinska

aromatica poetica April 3, 2026

Note from the author to the editor: I had in mind that I might send you “Eating Emotions,” originally published in Magma 85—a schools edition, but reworked since looking at it again. This morning when I lifted my head I noticed a piece of artwork I’d made, Petri Dish Emotions, that held my eye in a way that only made sense later in the day when I saw a short video clip of a TED talk by Brené Brown and …

A small, ragged-edged rectangular slab looks like a fragment of weathered, earthen material, its surface dense with grit, cracks, and compressed fibers. Carved into the center is a sinuous, worm-like “S” shape that dips and curves across the panel. The groove is filled with a coarse, brick-red pigment that sits unevenly in the trench, giving it a textured, raised, almost crumbly feel. The surrounding brown surface appears rough and organic, as if the whole piece were excavated from soil or made of compacted earth. The contrast between the matte, mottled brown field and the vivid, tactile red line makes the form appear both primal and deliberately inscribed. Made for “The Worms.”

“The Worms” * Nonfiction * David Lowe

aromatica poetica December 3, 2025

The worms live in our basement, in two large storage bins stacked on the floor amid the clutter. Eventually, when I’ve built out more shelves and cabinets, they’ll have their own oversize drawers I can easily slide out when it’s time to feed them. I’ll carve the word WORMS into the wood, knowing that when Caroline and I are dead, new owners will puzzle over what was meant by WORMS. I mean worms. Red wigglers; Eisenia fetida in the Latin. …

The image is a playful collage poem made from cut-out words and phrases arranged on a muted green background. Each scrap of text is torn from a different printed source, giving the composition a fragmented, tactile feel. The poem moves vertically down the page in a meandering path, beginning with the bold declaration “poetry was appetite” and ending with the surreal punchline “the moon was a meatball.” The piece mixes lofty themes—poetry, memoir, hard work, the moon—with earthy, humorous imagery of bread and meatballs, creating a whimsical tension between the profound and the absurd.

“poetry was appetite” and Other Visual Poems by J.I. Kleinberg

aromatica poetica October 1, 2025

Author’s note: “poetry was appetite” and the other four visual poems below are from an ongoing series of collages (2900+) built from phrases created through the happenstance of magazine page design. Each contiguous fragment of text (transcribed as a poetic line) is entirely removed from its original sense and syntax. The text is not altered (except for the occasional deletion of prefixes, suffixes, or punctuation) and includes no attributable phrases. The lines of each collage are, in most cases, sourced …

Five tea bag mini paintings by Oormila that, according to ChatGPT, “combine organic textures, delicate botanical illustrations, and an ephemeral quality, transforming an everyday object into a work of art.” Read full descriptions of each at the end of the post.

Five Botanical Micros + Mini Tea Bag Paintings by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

aromatica poetica February 20, 2025

A note from Oormila: Each of these micros has been paired with a miniature painting I made in mixed-media, on used and dried tea bag silk. These are part of a series of over 150 paintings that I painted on tea bags last year when I weaned myself off coffee and started drinking tea. I wanted to recycle the tea bags and I had the idea for making them into mini-canvases. The paintings in this submission have the same title as the micros …

A digital collage of the Basenote bitch exhibition in Olfactory Art Keller in all its pink glory: The pink sniffing table with scented scrunchies under domes with coordinated suckers and doodads from the photo installations, some of the bottles of the featured fragrances on a pink vanity, flanked by the four images featured here hanging on the pink walls of the gallery -- Fahrenheit. Dream, Love Spell, Country Apple – all of which get detailed image descriptions below…

Basenote Bitch * Elizabeth Renstrom * Fragrant Photos + Image Descriptions

aromatica poetica March 21, 2024

Hello, it’s Leona, Aromatica Poetica’s founding editor here. I was delighted to lead a verbal description tour and conversation with the artist Elizabeth Renstrom at Olfactory Art Keller last weekend. I wanted to share some of that fragrant, nostalgic fun with you! For the image descriptions, I chose four of the eight fragrant works and organized them chronologically: Fahrenheit (1988); Dream (1995); Country Apple (1997); and Love Spell (1999). For NYC friends, you can check out the Basenote Bitch exhibition …

Cabinet of Curiosities colored woodcut features a circular design with a border of small circles. Inside, there are four mythical creatures in different colors (pink, purple, blue, and green) at the cardinal points, connected by a chain that forms a cross in the middle. Behind them is a fiery background with yellow, orange, and red flames. Each creature is part human, part animal: the pink one has a bird's body, the purple a lion, the blue a monkey, and the green a sea serpent. The illustration has a vintage or antique feel, reminiscent of old alchemical or mystical texts.

“Cabinet of Curiosities” * Excerpt from ‘The Museum of Scent’ by Mandy Aftel

aromatica poetica January 7, 2024

Choosing which chapter of Mandy Aftel’s gorgeous The Museum of Scent: Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance to publish here was both pleasurable and painful. The pleasure was in lingering on passages and pictures that I loved, painful because we couldn’t excerpt the whole book! I highly recommend this generously illustrated book to the aromatically wise and naïve alike. The Museum of Scent was published last October and is a natural and cultural history of scent that was …

Sleepless Blossoming: 1 of 3 digital flower collages for AP by Bill Wolak that resembles a mosaic made by repeating an image of wildflowers in purple, white and yellow.

Poems by PM Flynn * Collages by Bill Wolak

aromatica poetica August 16, 2023

To the Silence I pick a lowly plum from an overhanging limb: bypassing judgment of those closestto the sky, in high rise stones, thosewho ride their thin skin higher than heaventhat fits in the smallest hand. Below thick branches the narrow weaveof this moment casts gray and black shade,on the faded sun of your summer dressand blonde wooden sandals: each small thought rises and fallsunder the pregnant silence inside you;all eyes curve with this sunset: dirt from every sunrise covers …

Author and High Priestess of Home Mixology, Lindsay Merbaum, Interviewed by Leona Godin

aromatica poetica August 12, 2022

Lindsay Merbaum is a witchy writer and high priestess of home mixology crafting cocktails/mocktails inspired by the moods and themes of contemporary reads. As soon as our mutual writer friend, Jess deCourcy Hinds, introduced us, this interview was fated. Lindsay’s thoughtful responses to our questions brings together so many of the things we at Aromatica Poetica hold dear: writing, scent, mixology, botanical diversity, books, creativity, magic, and more. Leona Godin, our founding editor, interviewed her via email. Aromatica Poetica: …

Olfactory Report 10 (Art, Science, Industry) stamp: white lettering on a purple background featuring a detail of organic material.

Olfactory Report 10: Art/Science/Industry Roundup (Includes a Perfume Analysis!) by Catherine Haley Epstein

aromatica poetica July 19, 2022

Art While I was unable to visit the Venice Biennale, I have scoured the internet, badgered friends who attended, and consulted various resources to unearth the one work that most directly pointed to the olfactory sense and olfactory material. Many of works included in the exhibition had tangential, suggestive and material aspects of scent. Simone Leigh’s extraordinary re-imagining of the US pavilion is called Sovereignty. Culturally potent materials like cowrie shells, plantains, raffia, and tobacco leaves have natural olfactory tones …