American Lip Gloss BO6, 2009
Oil on Canvas, 95 x 150 cm
White Cube Hoxton, London
3rd April 2007

This painting was in his exhibition of new work in the White Cube and selected for ‘The Painting of Modern Life’ exhibition at the Hayward later the same year. I don’t care for his technique, but the interesting choice and range of subjects meant the exhibition was better than I expected.

All his work is based on photographs he has taken himself, video stills or found images and as the gallery handout explains; ‘using a computer, Havekost might crop, stretch, skew or tweak the colours of the picture, or leave it almost untouched before making an inkjet print that he uses as the direct source material for the final painting.’

A figure in white is slumped in the passenger seat with the seat belt on. The car interior is definitely American with their dreadful taste in seats and trim in almost matching garish colours. The head is obscured as the seat is tilted back. A pair of sunglasses are tucked into the door handle. The situation is ambiguous, the person could have been ravished, involved in an accident or murdered. The title doesn’t help and could be euphemism for the smear of red blood running from the face down the front of the passengers white jacket. I since read in a review for the Hayward Exhibition that the image is based on a widely circulated newspaper photo showing a German visitor to Miami murdered in her hijacked car.[1]

Probably the strongest melancholic notes comes from the subject matter, a holiday in the sun tragically cut short, but I also identify with the way he has rendered the interior of the car. He uses the blur of the brush work to unify his images, treating all images equally, but it really works for this subject. I can believe the nasty velour of the seats and the fake leather panels on the door. For me there is a depressing sadness of this pathetic attempt to make a poor substitute look cheerful and appealing, and that more than anything is American lip gloss. The cheap fake alternative to the ‘real thing’! Interesting to think that it is this interior detail that will fix the image in time and provide a commentary on a period in history. I don’t think the tampering with the perspective of the interior in the car adds to the melancholic aura of the image other than serving as a method for providing distance between the painting and the original image.

[1] Dorment, Richard Review of ‘The Painting of Modern Life’ Daily Telegraph 2007

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