It was about the idea of the narrative — the running narrative, or the idea of the sequential, which brings out an interesting preoccupation of mine. I’m very interested in film, as you are, and I’m interested in the relationship between film and painting, as was Matisse. And if I wasn’t a painter I’m sure I’d be a film maker. I’ve often had ideas of making films. And what I love about film making is the way time can be represented, and the way that location and time and weather and context can be altered in a split second. It’s so lean unlike the theatre where you have got to clunk around all these stupid bits of furniture. The other great thing about film is you can represent whispers, which you cannot in the theatre, because they can’t hear you. This painting is cinematic. The equal nature of the pieces is like film frames. They’re all the same size, they’re sequential. They just run along.

Sean Scully, interview with Ned Rifkin, in Ned Rifkin (ed.), Sean Scully: Twenty years 1976–1995, London: Thames & Hudson, 1995, pp. 57–80 (p. 71).