Glove Stain
Solo Exhibition at vacant shop ‘Bureau Moderne’, Digne-Les-Bains, France Part of ‘Lignes des Désirs’ initiative curated by Punta Gallery and CAIRN Institute d’Art 17th of October - 30th of November 2025 Collaborators: Matt Robin (sound design of video performance piece 'One Bulgarian Rose'); Shirley Tang (production and design of lambskin glove); Bulgarian Rose (provider of pure Bulgarian rose oil and water) Curator: Boyana Dzhikova Desova's project ‘Glove Stain', presented in the former stationery store ‘Bureau Moderne’ on the High Street of Digne-les-Bains, explores the scent of the rose as a conceptual thread connecting Provence and Bulgaria. The installation unfolds as a study of material transformation — examining the cultural significance, symbolism and invisible labour embedded in the rose and its distillation through two durational scent sculptures and a video performance. Bulgarian rose oil from the Rose Valley in Kazanlak and Karlovo, long described as “liquid gold” and prized in the perfume houses of Grasse, becomes a point of departure. The rose here is both subject and metaphor: a bearer of identity, economy and care; a product revered worldwide yet often out of reach for the hands that cultivate it. The sculptures, composed of cold-pressed, laser-cut, and welded black sheet metal, echo the industrial apparatuses of rose-oil extraction. The larger piece, Glove Stain (2025), holds a hand-blown, pigmented glass vessel, a contemporary florentine still, filled with a mixture of Rosa Damascena scented water and oil. The smaller sculpture, Enfleurage (2025), contains vegetable fat that slowly absorbs the fragrance of rose petals over the duration of the exhibition. This centuries-old process captures a flower’s essence without harm, allowing what perfumers once called “the soul of the flower” to be drawn forth through the quiet agency of fat. Two untreated lambskin gloves form the emotional and historical heart of the installation. They recall the origins of perfumery in Grasse, once a medieval leather town where hides were masked with the scent of herbs and roses. By the 16th century, the Italian Renaissance fashion for perfumed gloves had spread to France, giving rise to the celebrated gants à la florentine, worn by royals such as Marie Antoinette. As the fragrance eclipsed the leather, perfumery separated from the tanning trade and flourished into an art form of its own. Beyond their decorative purpose and an accessory to enhance a woman’s modesty and femininity, the scented gloves masked the body’s own stench and served as a form of protection - creating a barrier between the skin and the outside impurities of the world, a fragrant defense against the “bad airs” of the world. The traces left through the rose glove-staining process become painterly gestures which reveal the residue and invisible value of the rose oil and the labour embedded within it. In the accompanying video performance, point-of-view recordings of handshakes accumulate a visible patina of contact; each exchange becomes a mark of human connection and transference. The gants à la florentine glove emerges as the work’s protagonist: a vessel of scent, skin, and memory. Through traces, stains, and touch, Glove Stain meditates on the fragility of scent and material memory, revealing the unseen histories that linger in materials, gestures and in air. List of Works: 1. Glove Stain (Distillation Apparatus) (2025)2.2m x 1.2m x 1.2m cold pressed laser cut and welded black sheet metal modular elements, distressed metal postament, hand blown pigmented glass florentine vial, lambskin glove 2. Enfleurage (2025) 1.6m x 1.2m x 1.2m cold pressed laser cut and welded black sheet metal modular piece, vegetable fat, rose petals 3. Gant à la florentine (2025) (Glove Stain Residue) 30cm x 10cm x 1cm lambskin glove Glove manufacture and design in collaboration with Shirley Tang 4. One Bulgarian Rose (2025) (100 handshakes) 5min digital video Sound mixing by Matt Robin 5. Rose Drops (2025) various sizes pigmented glass elements
