Since the 90s Valeria Brancaforte has been producing limited edition or one-of-a-kind books, realised through relief incision on surfaces made out of linoleum, wood or other materials, which she successively hand prints either by herself or in collaboration with other artists or master printers. The necessity to carve the text alongside the image comes from the urgency to value the artistic aspect of the graphic sign, playing with its semantic valence.
I first came across Brancaforte on a double page spread in the book 'No brief: graphic designer's personal projects' by John O'Reilly in chapter four: 'the publisher'. I was immediately drawn to the discerning imagery paired alongside beautifully hand-cut lettering. O'Reilly describes her book as a 'typographic dreamworld'. The text itself may appear straightforward, yet the images add a complexity (alongside the complexity of carving the designs themselves to print onto the books pages- a slow and highly-skilled process in itself) which are not just a presentational feature: the image and the text are part of one whole package. O'Reilly yet again states that the book overall holds an 'uncannily ambiguous' tone because of the juxtaposing softly intense ritualistic images depicted, that form an eerie and uncertain narrative that draws you in.
Brancaforte prints using a variety of skills: linocut, woodcut, and linoleum block cuts. Sometimes she prints onto delicate japansese paper to reveal all the intricate detail, sometimes onto old book pages. The text she carves and then prints are often taken from various literature: poems and stories and tautograms originating from many different sources.
My favourite of Brancaforte's artist books is her collaboration with poet Marcos Ana, responding to Ana's poem 'Tell Me, What is a Tree Like'.
It's a beautiful ode to poignant words through handcrafted illustration. The fact it's in Italian means I can view the work through my eyes and see the letters purely as shapes I don't necessarily understand, but I can understand the feeling- the ambience- that the book itself creates.
In John O'Reilly's book, I was also interested in Graca Abreau Design's hand-sized
The Book of Thoughts, based on the idea of filling a diary with 'immediate reflections'. The book has the concept of a 'book within a book' due to displaying other examples of diaries and notebooks alongside retrospective quotes, such as "once we can instantly relate to something or someone, the feeling of loneliness is replaced by serene satisfaction". It is, according to O'Reilly, 'a quaint, precious object' that feels deeply personal to Graca Abreau in it's unassuming delicacy, but the diary-like intimacy could also prove insightful to readers alike.
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