Sam Phillips visits the Barcelona studio of painter Sean Scully in advance of the exhibition Sean Scully: Triptychs at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, on view from November 2 – January 26, 2014.

Scully tells Phillips: "Painting is an animal that is not a dodo: it will not become extinct…It always has the ability to shape-shift itself into something different as an art form." Bemoaning the divide between the art world and artists, he continues: "alot of people are interested in art as a form of entertainment or as a one-liner. I’m interested in mystic profundity, primitive utterance and the whole pathos of the history of painting. This is a deep ambition.’"