‘It’s nearly seven decades since Willie’s climb, Grindelwald still does sleepy sublime,’ is typically gnomic rhyme offered by Mark Cousins in the latest of his series of personally minded, publicly funded ruminations on well-kent artists. His look at St Andrews-born Wilhelmina Barns-Graham is full of passion for her ‘Rubik’s Cube meets Rothko’ artwork, a product of her synesthesia, Cousins asserts, his voice tremulous as he imagines links to The Beatles, David Lynch and Hitchcock’s Shadow Of A Doubt. Such references reflect more about Cousins’ own enthusiasms than the work of the artist herself, but that’s surely the point of a personally motivated essay. 

Cousins recalls how a Christmas gift from his partner led him to investigate the workings of Barns-Graham’s ‘brain machine’ and how it was stimulated by her cathartic 1949 climb of the Grindelwald glacier. ‘How close have I got to Willie?’ he asks; an interviewee suggests that she wouldn’t have been thrilled about a film being made but Cousins makes his ‘portrait of an infected brain’ a consistently entertaining ride. Visualisations of Barns-Graham’s interest in maths and grids provide potent visual elements here, with Cousins providing an accessible entry point for those unfamiliar with this legendary Scottish artist.

A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things was screened as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival and is in cinemas on Friday 18 October.