Speaker Annie Bocel

A graduate of the Estienne school of engraving, Annie Bocel made her apprenticeship with engraver Jean-Luc Seigneur, then taught intaglio in a Parisian workshop and learned the impression of embossing within the company Creanog. Rich from these successive experiences, she opened a printmaking workshop in northern Finistère, and, at the same time, became an engraver of typographic punches at the Imprimerie Nationale printing office. Bocel’s prints are about nature, time, and imprint. Sensitive to the idea of what is lost, what disappears, she likes to see things revealed and hear their stories. In this quest for forgotten forms, writing and geometry are essential. Echoing this personal work, and following a three-year transmission in the framework of the Maitre d’art program set up by INMA (National Institute of Art Craft), Bocel contributes to the valorization and conservation of engraving typographic punches, a profession recently listed on the inventory of French intangible cultural heritage.