**_Rubedo_** is an olfactory sculpture — a work in which scent functions as a primary medium alongside form, expanding perception beyond the visual.

It marks the culmination of the alchemical process.

**At the center of the object stands an ostrich egg** — an archetypal form of potential, a closed beginning, a primal unity.

Here, however, it ruptures.

The shell breaks open and expands into space, suspended at the exact moment of birth. Its fragments hover in tension — between what was and what is becoming.

Inside, the hidden is revealed.

**An embryo-like form, carved from alabaster, becomes the core of the composition**. It is not a biological representation, but a symbolic one — the emergence of a new state of being.

Fibrous structures stretch between the fragments of the shell, resembling tissues, connections, nerves.

They hold tension.  
They mark transition.

They sustain the structure while revealing its irreversible transformation.

**The alabaster core is infused with scent** — a composition built around amber and oud, enriched with natural red pigment from Morocco.

Scent is not an addition.  
It is a continuation of the process.

It diffuses into space, activating memory, body, and emotion.

In alchemical tradition, _rubedo_ represents completion — the integration of opposites, the union of matter and spirit.

It is fullness.  
It is realization.

In my work, _Rubedo_ also reflects a personal moment —

a birth emerging from the integration of places, energies, and experiences.

This is not the end of the process.

It is the moment when life becomes visible.

A reminder that dissolution is not the opposite of creation —  
it is its condition.

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Agnieszka Nowicka

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