Plein & délié

Whatever technique Annie Bocel employs (relief or intaglio engraving), her work involves creating an impression on paper using an engraving. Echoing the cabinet of curiosities and the immemorial – that which eludes us and fills us with wonder – her approach, over the past fifteen years or so, has aimed to catalogue and represent nature and its specimens. To engrave the imprint of this mysterious script of the living.

The exhibition offers an opportunity to discover the techniques of intaglio and relief engraving, bookbinding and letterpress printing, inviting the public to delve into history and discover the craftsmanship of our ancestors. The practice of craftsmanship, understood as a tool for research, exploration and personal fulfilment, is also a means of free expression and the development of thought and action. Annie Bocel is one of the last craftswomen to have mastered this trade. This exhibition addresses a subject that concerns us all and seeks to respond to it: the disappearance of craftsmanship and a certain manual skill.

Through this exhibition, Annie Bocel unveils a precious craft and offers a delicate testimony to life itself. The ancestral techniques presented through moulds and tools invite us to reflect, highlighting the anthropological notions of memory and fragility inherent in our societies.

Annie Bocel

A graduate of the École Estienne, Annie Bocel chose to work at the workbench, taking her first steps from Parisian engravers and printers (Atelier Seigneur, Creanog, Atelier 63) before finally receiving exclusive training at the Cabinet des Poinçons of the French national printing office in punchcutting.

This was closely followed by the book Drawing the movement : cutting the type punch, a collaborative project with Maître d’arts 2 Nelly Gable, published by Éditions des Cendres in 2019 with the support of the French Savoir-Faire Institute.

Based in Dinan, she devotes herself to the creation of prints and typefaces, to stories that never run dry: a global herbarium and ghosts, the forgotten gardens of Nineveh, fossilised confidences, a bestiary of love, bathers playing with the currents, remnants of dunes, or even fragments of portolan charts…

anniebocel.com

1. Punchcutting : the first stage in the typographic process developed by Gutenberg around 1450 for movable-type printing. The production of movable lead type involves four stages:

– Engraving a letter into a steel barr. The letter is upside down: ‘Я’.

– Striking this punch into a piece of copper, which is called the matrix ‘R’.

– Casting an alloy of lead, antimony and tin into this matrix, which is fitted into a hand mould, known as a ‘Я’.

– Finally, printing the freshly cast lead letter onto paper; the letter is upright ‘R’.

The traditional typesetting process requires the involvement of four trades: the punchcutter, the caster, the typesetter and the letterpress printer.

2. Dispositif Maitre d’art et Élève : a unique scheme in Europe designed to preserve skills that are now practised in only a handful of workshops. The official title of Master Craftsman, established in 1994 by the Ministry of Culture, has since been awarded to 149 professionals possessing remarkable and rare expertise. Once appointed, each Master of Art is tasked with passing on this expertise to the Apprentice with whom they have been paired.