More than 1,000 tickets for the Profiad Kyffin Experience were booked in just 10 days at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, prompting the library to release additional sessions running until March 2027.
The permanent installation brings Sir Kyffin Williams’s rugged landscapes of mountains, hill farms, and sheepdogs to life through sound, light, and projection mapping. The experience opens to the public on Wednesday, November 18, following an unveiling on Thursday, November 12, by cabinet minister for culture and sport Heledd Fychan MS, as reported by Nation.Cymru.
Narrated by opera singer Sir Bryn Terfel, the 30-minute bilingual installation surrounds visitors in a sensory display designed by Focal Studios. The project makes use of high-fidelity 3D scans developed with researchers at Liverpool John Moores University to capture the heavy texture of Williams’s palette knife work.
“Kyffin was Wales’s foremost ambassador in the visual arts, and helping to introduce him to a whole new generation here at the National Library of Wales, the place he entrusted with so much of his life’s work, means a great deal to me,” Terfel said, according to the North Wales Chronicle.
The installation is staged in rooms limiting capacity to just 10 people per session. In the first room, Terfel introduces the artist’s life and background. The second room envelops visitors in swirling projections of Welsh landscapes accompanied by a soundtrack performed by the folk trio VRï and composed by Leo Mercer.
The third room features an interactive self-portrait where visitors can experience the dense physical texture of the paint. “We felt the pressure. You want to be true to his life, his work, his methods, and he's not around to give us any feedback,” Focal Studios chief executive Dennis Outten said.
“Kyffin’s paintings are so textured that we had to invent two new technologies to do them justice,” Outten told Nation.Cymru.
The National Library of Wales holds the world’s largest collection of Williams’s work, housing around 200 oil paintings, more than 300 original prints, and over 1,200 works on paper left to the institution upon the artist’s death in 2006. The library’s art curator, Morfudd Bevan, said that the institution purchased an oil painting of Cadair Idris from Williams for £15 in 1950, according to The Guardian.
Funding for the project was led by the Colwinston Charitable Trust through its 30th anniversary fund, with additional support from the Welsh Government and the Friends of the National Library of Wales. Admission to the 30-minute experience is free, though a small booking fee applies.
Alongside the main installation in Aberystwyth, the library is running a companion exhibition titled Kyffin: Face to Face at its Riverside gallery in Haverfordwest, which remains open until April 3, 2027.
