For almost five decades Gerhard Richter has been one of the world’s most significant artists. The media-shy painter granted filmmaker Corinna Belz access to his studio where he was working on a series of large abstract paintings over six months in the summer of 2009. Gerhard Richter Painting gives us rare insights into the making of these paintings and the work of the artist. ‘Painting is another form of thinking,’ Richter had said early on. The film takes this premise seriously. In highly concentrated images, we are given a fly-on-the-wall perspective of a very personal, tension-filled process of artistic creation. It is a quiet yet highly charged process of action and reflection, driven by years of experience and shaped by an intense physical presence. We see Richter painting. We see him observe and dialogue with his paintings. We see him contemplate, wait, reject, rework and sometimes destroy only to begin a new. In giving us the opportunity to participate as viewers, Corinna Belz’s intelligent and perceptive film brings us closer to the complex processes of artistic creation. Our perceptions expand. The paintings themselves become the protagonists. We experience another form of thinking. Gerhard Richter Painting is the penetrating portrait of an artist at work – and a fascinating film about the art of seeing.