Artist Talk
13:00-15:00
Anna Falcini discusses how the letters, notebooks and drawings of the artist Gwen John, are at the centre of her latest solo exhibition 'reimagining Gwen John: soft tissue'. A British Council Wales commission in 2024 to develop new work about John’s life in Paris, began a discovery of the inner worlds that occupied the late Welsh artist’s life in Paris tracing her spiritual, personal and non-human relationships.
Falcini examined how the interface of John’s artistic and personal life became entangled with the emotional intensities that the artist experienced. Often regarded as problematic, Falcini reveals new readings and brings to the foreground these emotional conflicts that acted in parallel to John’s artistic life.
In the talk, the artist will explore the provocations for new perspectives on this aspect of John’s life that emerge through the materiality of fragile substances such as porcelain and fabric, the frivolous and decorative nature of a vermillion hairbow, or the actions of attending to the female body through the brushing of hair, realised through sculpture, performance, installation and watercolour drawings.
Performance 'A Cat or a Woman- an affair of volumes'
15:30-16:30
Anna Falcini presents a durational performance work that re-enacts key aspects of the late Welsh artist, Gwen John’s life (1876-1939). Exploring John’s ability to move between both feminine and domestic routines of her daily life whilst also engaging in more daring acts of walking and sleeping alone in the Meudon Forest to follow her lost cats, reveals John’s independent character and how she challenges expectations of women in the early 20th century.
The performance begins in the exterior wooded areas of Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, as Falcini moves through the space with cat-like gestures, exploring the ability of the cat to cross boundaries and move where it pleases, relying on its intuition and animal instincts. Inhabiting the cat’s body, the artist’s movements evolve through the focal point of the cat’s tail; a critical point of balance and motion that separates the cat’s autonomy with the limitations of the human body.
As Falcini enters the spectacular Gothic building, the artist returns to the feminine routines of John. These modes of attending to the body through a series of actions, pay particular attention to the brushing of her hair that become acts of self-care and tenderness, rather than expressions of conventional beauty and preparation for the external gaze. Falcini pivots into her own desires for self-care and nurturing of her body, against the historical narratives for women to give themselves to others first. In this she will wear a protective blue cloak at moments of the performance and crawl down the staircase, in a final act of precariousness and looming threat to the ongoing position of women.
Free entry!
