AN illustrated talk and a musical performance will accompany the opening of the new exhibition at Newtown’s Oriel Davies Gallery this Saturday, April 6.

‘In Between the Folds are Particles’ will be showing until June 5 and features a compelling body of new work telling of an ongoing conversation between contemporary artist Anna Falcini, and the late Welsh artist, Gwen John (1876 -1939), through the archive of John’s draft letters and diaries at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.

It will be accompanied this Saturday from 4.30pm by a talk on Gwen John’s work in the collections at Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales, Cardiff, by Neil Lebeter, senior curator: Modern & Contemporary Art.

Mr Lebeter will then present an in-conversation with Anna Falcini and there will be a performance by the soprano Chanae Curetis.

Refreshments are available, with all welcome.

Bound within the archival materials, are the particles of John’s life; her vulnerabilities, passions, doubts and artistic concerns. As Falcini began researching the Gwen John Papers in 2014, she discovered that John’s experiences as a female artist closely mirrored her own despite being divided by a century of time.

Through film, sound, photography and drawing, Falcini traces the compressions of Gwen John held in the archive, mapping the complexity of both her artistic and personal journey.

In her quest to unravel the episodes of John’s life, Falcini travelled to the locations that were key places shaping John’s story; Tenby, Paris and Dieppe. Far from gaining clarity, however, Falcini became immersed into the ‘multiplicities of meanings’ that emerged from the narratives and spaces inhabited by John. The late Welsh artist, became simultaneously absent and present, hovering like an aura, in the guise of ‘a shadow.’

The exhibition will go on to tour to Aberystwyth Arts Centre in 2020.