A Tate short film on the painter Richard Cook, walking around the Cornish coastline and talking about his paintings. A wonderful little film…

Richard Cook’s paintings emerge from drawings and sketches he makes while out walking along the Cornish coastline near his home in Newlyn. In this film he takes us through his process and shows us how closely he lives with works in progress, returning to them over and over again until he is satisfied.

A quote that particularly stood out for me was when Richard described painting, he said ‘I think the thing about painting is it’s always out of reach slightly. A bit like life perhaps. A bit like time. How one reaches for something, a bit like the horizon and yet one can never have it. One can never even touch it. One sort of yearns towards it and that’s all one can ever do.’