Eberhard Havekost: Benutzeroberflache

Benutzeroberflache translates roughly as "graphical user interface," and in making it the title of this series, the German painter Eberhard Havekost (born in 1967) addresses directly the technical details of a style that German critics have called "Fotoshoprealismus." Havekost's work, which has been seen at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and London's Saatchi Gallery, processes motifs from his own photographs that have been computer-manipulated in serial variations. While, in the artist's own words, Havekost "makes a pretense of capturing things as they pass by," his closely cropped compositions distance and fictionalize their subjects. Each painting seems slightly out of focus and distorted, as in his nomadic motifs shot from passing cars, including tents, mobile homes, boxcars or junked vehicles. Gray shading gives his works a subdued, smeared and slightly flat look. In referring to the changes in our habits of perception caused by mobility and media, he suggests that it is no longer possible to portray reality.