Anna Le Corno

Farouche

Wood marquetry maker

©Farouche

©Solène Cochet

©Antoine Liepens

©Farouche

©Nicolas Lascourrèges

Taming a wild material

Anna is inspired by nature’s beauty and wilderness
She originally trained as an architect
She creates custom pieces and her own collection

One of the reasons Anna Le Corno moved from architecture to cabinetmaking is because she can express her creativity in each stage of producing an object. “I definitely benefited from my architectural work, but I realised I wanted to fully express myself from the beginning to the end of a project,” she says. After training at France’s Ecole Boulle, she founded Farouche to create contemporary fine furniture, and enjoys collaborating with a variety of artists and artisans. She emphasises the role of chance in her artistic designs and how the veining of the laser cutting can contrast and highlight the wood’s natural veining. This interplay fascinates her.

Interview

©Antoine Liepens

©Regis Colin Berthelier

What is your favourite stage in the creation of a piece?: I love the moment it moves from virtual to real, when the pieces are first cut. I also enjoy the long assembly phase when everything becomes dirty and dusty and then when it’s done the piece is finally revealed as the excess glue is cleaned away.
How does your work link to your homeland?: For me this is less about the local land and more about the tradition of a skill. I don’t have restrictions about where I get my materials, but I am invested in the notion of working with traditional savoir-faire and then taking it forward.
Do you enjoy collaborative work?: Yes, I feel very lucky to be involved with collaborative projects. Like the street art project, or the dashboard design with DS Automobiles. We worked on an entirely different scale, with real challenges to solve, far removed from our usual studio work.
What’s your advice to young artisans interested in your field?: Try to enrich yourself with as many different experiences, collaborations and professional relationships as you can find. Just keep trying new things. ‘Doing’ is the only way to learn, to move forward.

Anna Le Corno is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2015 and she started teaching in 2019