With his paintings, Richard Phillips is a master of seduction – he plays upon the complex web of human obsessions with sexuality, politics, power, and death. He uses classical painterly techniques to make things and people you have seen before look and feel unfamiliar and mean something different. We discussed the first art car to win at Le Mans, what it feels like to unintentionally make a lot of people really mad, Gossip Girl, and what can stand in the way of love.