Havekost sees this space, with its randomness and piles of splintered timber in an urban setting, as something that exists between nature and civilisation. The artist’s paintings revel in this in-between state, putting into play a set of oppositions that animate the work: abstraction and figuration, surface and depth, artificiality and authenticity. The diptych 'Made in Germany (1-2), B06' inverts the colours of a Union Jack, transforming a national symbol – the British flag, with its associations with pride and power – into an ambiguous abstraction. The altered flag no longer signifies, but hangs on the wall as a set of formal relationships, flattened of meaning. 'Exotik, B07' traps a large palm tree in a box-like space and transforms its spiky fronds into flat, feathery textures. The diptych 'Regen 2 (1-2), B06' depicts a cluttered scene, including a television set and cardboard boxes, re-constituting it as two views, each so similar that apprehending them simultaneously becomes a kind of visual riddle.

Havekost focuses on the everyday, whether through the media or his immediate surroundings, treating all visual phenomena equally, as if almost anything could – and does – make an interesting painting. The shift and blur of Havekost’s brushwork lends an air of fragility to the picture, as if its surface might dissolve into a uniform skin. But despite their delicate surfaces, the paintings have a forceful presence, and few contemporary artists bring such intelligence and energy to an investigation into how we perceive images.