As a painter, Richard Cook is interested in those things that can’t be put into words: the feelings, sensations, impressions and impulses that visit us all but are near impossible to communicate. Look at his gestural paintings of ephemeral, dreamlike landscapes, and I have a feeling you’ll understand what I mean.

When I speak with him, we spend a lot of time skirting around the unsayable, looking for analogies and allegories that help me to understand the paintings. Do we get there Where there’s such a gulf between talking and painting, that’s a difficult question to answer.

A good artist makes you see the world anew, and that’s exactly what Cook does. Understanding a bit about how that happens is invaluable, even if the core of his practice will always be a wordless thing.

Your paintings, as closely as they tend towards abstraction at times, retain a crystal clear sense of place. I wondered how important it is to you to locate your work physically?

I think there’s a primitive part of all of us that identifies strongly with places: landscapes, mountains, moorland, street scenes, whatever it might be. My paintings have always been concerned with that — it’s like a root. There has to be a real contact point with the world, not something that’s arbitrary. No matter how abstract they look, I could give a grid reference for every painting that I make.

 So the physical location is very important, almost primordial. And where do you as the artist come into the picture?

In a way, these places exist already inside me. Painting seems to be a way to make a connection with something inside oneself through the outside world. There’s something crucial about that and you can’t make it up or concoct it  — it has to actually happen. That’s why I end up destroying so many paintings. In the ones that survive, there’s this sort of magic that you can’t ordain or rehearse. The sense of place is vital for this.

 This makes me think of the way that you use your hands to paint, often working very quickly. Is that your way of channeling this difficult-to-capture magic?

I haven’t thought about my painting in an intellectual way for about 40 years. I allow it to take place, and I follow and trust the energies and motivations that are coming from within me. Imagine I’ve got this seven foot canvas in front of me, along with a quick drawing from earlier that day. At this point, want to get the painting done as fast as I physically can, because something will slip away otherwise. It comes from my blind side, in a way. When I capture it, I know straight away.

It’s almost like you’re catching a fish with your hands: something appears quickly and disappears quickly. It’s your job in the split second between to capture the damn thing. You can choose to make this dramatic movement or stand still and watch it disappear.

That’s right, it’s a leap of faith. But if my paintings aren’t that, then they’re nothing. There’s no in-between. There’s this sort of magical world that we’re part of but we’re too conscious most of the time to notice it. We just let it flow beneath us.

Studying in London, you came into contact with painters like Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach. There are commonalities between your paintings and theirs, but I feel that there are also important differences. Is that fair to say?

 I knew both of those artists — Leon better than Frank. Painting doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it comes from a culture, you can trace lineages backwards and forwards. I do think that’s where my roots are. I was 17, 18, at Saint Martins and that was my first experience of meeting real artists. A good teacher reveals yourself to yourself, and that’s what Kossoff did for me. But eventually, you have to disengage yourself from your influences in a certain way.

Is that why you left London for Cornwall?

I’d never been a Londoner. Though I loved it, I had an urgent need to get out of the gravitational pull of the London scene. I lost all of my professional contacts, but there was something more important at stake. The difference wasn’t London or Cornwall — it was more a need to find and retain my own voice at all costs.

And it seems like when you found that voice, did those professional opportunities re-emerge under a new guise?

So there I am in Cornwall, having lost all of my contacts in London bar a few, then the Tate in St Ives comes along. Nick Serota [then director of the Tate] came to my studio and, within a few minutes, said “leave it with me”. Soon after, in 2001, I had my solo show there. I’m not a recluse, but I am very private with my studio practice, so it was lucky that it happened. They have been very good to me ever since.

What a lucky encounter. It sometimes feels like there are things that make you a great artist and things that bring you success in a traditional sense, and I’m not sure how much these two categories overlap.

 I agree with that. I cannot tailor my work to suit the market or the galleries. It has to cut through that. I can’t be beholden to cultural mores. If you look at the best painters from history, they were often underappreciated in their time.

So you have to paint something that is meaningful to you, and hope the rest will follow?

That’s what painting is: it has to have a profound truth in it and if it doesn’t, I’m not particularly interested in it. Humanity and truth: it’s difficult to explain what I mean by that, but I know on sight what it is that speaks to me.

I wanted to finish by talking about clothing. I’ve heard that you normally wear a jacket and trousers in the studio, is that right?

I suppose what I wear in the studio is anything that’s getting worn out. Linda, my girlfriend, often buys me things from charity shops. I cover them in paint until  they can stand up on their own. I like clothes, and suppose I have a sensibility that I can’t escape.