Artist Statement
Exhibition. Chapelle de l’Oratoire – Clermont-Ferrand, May 26 – June 11
ISEA2023 selected artwork
Annie Bascoul’s ambition is to reveal an idea of beauty that combines dreams and poetry. She wants to provoke an emotion, the emotion felt in front of a singular presence. This “beauty” that she seeks, she finds essentially in nature, gardens, decorative arts, fine arts. Her creations must be rare and precious, beautiful and poetic. This is how Annie Bascoul tends to offer the spectator a complete immersive experience in her universe by mixing forms, dimensions, digital or real lace, shadows and lights. Her beauty plays on fragility.
The garden is “her” garden.
From Blaise Pascal’s geometric work and her breakthroughs in fields such as perspective and hydraulics, Annie Bascoul has retained the influence he had on the genius of the gardener Le Nôtre who created the most famous French gardens.
By using hybrid techniques, printing on embossed paper and leather, she illustrates and above all gives a soul to the gardens represented, their rectangular, circular and iconic shapes. Through the artifice of virtual creations and the know-how of her partner Christophe Bascoul, she maps these representations of augmented reality, sober and light, visited by Blaise Pascal himself (in augmented reality).
Blaise Pascal and the gardens refreshes our view of the Anthropocene’s desire for human domination of nature, which seems to question the necessary symbiosis between all the ‘natural elements’.
Curator: Gabriel Soucheyre, Videoformes
This project is part of the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Blaise Pascal celebrated throughout the year 2023, the event Les Arts en Balade in Clermont-Ferrand as well as within the framework of the 28th International Symposium on Electronic Art: ISEA2023.
Annie Bascoul develops in her new creation a work around gardens and in particular around French gardens. She wanted to underline the symbiotic dimension between a researcher (Blaise Pascal) and 17th century landscape painters with the creation of art books with embossed pages and illustrated with watercolors. From these boards and with the help of Christophe Bascoul who creates augmented reality, she wants to show how the scientific advances of Blaise Pascal were used in the design of these gardens. Through these illustrated books and augmented reality, this work immerses the viewer in the natural world of 17th century gardens and in the discoveries of Blaise Pascal that relate to them.
Another part of the exhibition will complete the theme of the Gardens by comparing the work of Watteau and that of Blaise Pascal. Vivre en Watteau will transform the Chapelle de l’Oratoire into a living room, with projections on the sofa, armchairs and walls from engravings by Antoine Watteau.
Annie Bascoul’s work responds to the expectation of a new look at the work of the character, his influence, the scope of his work, his affinities.
A partner event of ISEA2023, 28th International Symposium on Electronic Art
- Annie Bascoul, born in 1958, is a French visual artist who has adopted lace as her chosen means of expression. Her installations have been displayed in major French museums, including her recent solo exhibition at the Musée du Cloître, Tulle, the latest in a long series of institutional spaces in France and abroad that, over the years, have hosted and sometimes acquired her works in their permanent collections: Musée des Beaux Arts et de la dentelle d’Alençon, Musée de la dentelle de Caudry, Musée des Manufactures de Retournac, Musée des Arts décoratifs , de la Faïence et de la Mode Château Borély Marseille – just to name a few. [source: https://www.artemorbida.com/interview-with-annie-bascoul/?lang=en] Annie Bascoul develops in her new creation a work around gardens and in particular around French gardens. She wanted to underline the symbiotic dimension between a researcher (Blaise Pascal) and 17th century landscape painters with the creation of art books with embossed pages and illustrated with watercolors. From these boards and with the help of Christophe Bascoul who creates augmented reality, she wants to show how the scientific advances of Blaise Pascal were used in the design of these gardens. Through these illustrated books and augmented reality, this work immerses the viewer in the natural world of 17th century gardens and in the discoveries of Blaise Pascal that relate to them. [Source: https://educdome.puy-de-dome.fr/evenements/details/exposition-blaise-pascal-et-les-jardins-annie-bascoul-videoformes]
https://www.anniebascoul.com