Painting and cinema are unique and separate. Painting is the most beautiful act of solitude; it's just you and the paint. The art of painting will always live.”

These words were spoken by the US film director David Lynch, at the recent opening of The Air is On Fire, a retrospective of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, film shorts and installations at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris. It is typical of Lynch to speak so sparsely about his creative work - he is famous both for giving little away and for the charming, quavering, midwestern drawl with which he gives that little away (“Jimmy Stewart from Mars”, Mel Brooks, executive producer of Lynch's film The Elephant Man, called him).