The Artists Laboratory series presents the more experimental and less familiar work of contemporary artists, opening up the creative process to explore the conceptual and practical concerns with which they engage. In recent years Stephen Farthing has investigated the  back story of paintings, his own and those by other artists, using drawing and painting to understand their character, content and form. Examining the art-historical classifications that define the pictures, the narratives that have informed their content or the patterns they share with other works, he sifts and organises the information in drawings, and proposes conclusions in paintings. David Scott Kastan responds to this body of work, published here for the first time, with an eloquent analysis of several key pieces, while Farthing and his fellow artist Stephen Chambers discuss subjects ranging from the attitude required to write about a painting and the role that text can play in making one, to the differences in working on either side of the Atlantic.