Immersive Show Brings Kyffin Williams' Rugged Welsh Landscapes to Life

The paintings of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and David Hockney have all received the blockbuster immersive treatment in recent years. Now one of Wales's most celebrated artists, Sir Kyffin Williams, famed for depicting the dramatic scenery of his homeland in thick layers of paint applied with a palette knife, is getting the same kind of show.

Hundreds of Williams' pictures held in storage at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth have been animated and set to music. His farmers and sheepdogs traverse rugged terrain, waves appear to crash around the exhibition space, dark grey mountains rise up and a sun sinks into the sea.

Morfudd Bevan, the library's art curator, said a central goal was to introduce Williams, who died in 2006, and the library itself to fresh audiences, particularly younger people. "Kyffin is one of Wales's most important artists and he was embraced by the public. His work romanticised Wales, encapsulated the meaning of the country and the idea of hiraeth," she said, referring to the Welsh word describing a homesickness for a place that may no longer exist, or perhaps never did.

The library's relationship with the painter stretches back to 1950, when it purchased his oil painting of the mountain Cadair Idris for 15 pounds while he was teaching art in London. That work would now be valued in the tens of thousands of pounds.

After Williams returned to Ynys Mon, his Anglesey birthplace in north Wales, he became a familiar face at the library. "Someone would call 'Kyffin's here!' and people would go down and have a cup of tea with him," Bevan recalled. On his death he left his estate to the institution, making it the world's largest holder of his work: 200 oil paintings, 300 original prints and more than 1,000 pieces on paper, alongside personal items including his palette, a paint-spattered phone and the boots he wore walking the hills and valleys.

The bilingual experience, titled the Profiad Kyffin Experience, is staged across three rooms near a main entrance with views over the town and sea. It is more intimate than the Van Gogh, Cezanne and Hockney productions, admitting only 10 visitors at a time, and entry is free. The singer Sir Bryn Terfel, himself an avid collector of Williams' work, introduces the artist's story in the first room. In the second, landscapes, seascapes and blocks of colour swirl across walls, floor and ceilings to the sound of a Welsh chamber-folk string trio. The third room features an electronic version of a Williams self-portrait that visitors can touch to sense the thickness of his paint, with the moustache especially dense.

Dennis Outten, chief executive of Focal Studios, the show's main designers, said projecting the landscapes without sacrificing texture was a major challenge. The team spent months studying the stored paintings to capture his bold palette knife technique. "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," Outten said. Sensitive choices included how to make his farmers walk and which colours to use as a sun sets into the sea, but he believes the artist, a cheeky raconteur and educator in his telling, would have approved of the playful approach.

The exhibition opens to the public on Wednesday 18 November and will remain at the library for three to five years. Advance booking is highly recommended.