 What makes an artist? What drives someone to create a painting, a composition or write a novel? While many academic categories of art exist, not every artist easily fits into prescribed meanings. Alan Russell-Cowan is one such artist. Afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia, we watch Cowan struggle with the desire to be a great painter, while battling delusions and auditory hallucinations. My Name is Alan and I Paint Pictures examines Cowan s life, the role art and painting play in it, and how mental illness intertwines with artistic creation and perception. For Alan, painting becomes a cure for his symptoms, the means of his release - yet for us his painting means much more. It is an alternative perspective on art and life, a world of mental illness visually reconstructed for viewers who never experience this themselves Through Alan s life and work, we can examine the wider art world, questioning the means and rationale behind contemporary critical judgment of art.