Willehad Eilers

Willehad Eilers (*1981), also known as Wayne Horse, has been thematically concerned for some time with the ambivalent wealth of Western society - the "wallowing of pigs in paradise", as Eilers says. "The wealth and material abundance of people today leave traces in their self-image". When there are no serious problems, when there is nothing left to wish for, it can’t get worse. What is left is the very own self-optimization and self-realization. But the range of what is offered as success or as a 'fulfilled life' is limited.

By looking at social media the bitter taste of the feeling that everyone enjoys a continual, everlasting vacation - a reckless moment – remains. Certainly, the viewer may approach the artist's scenes with humor and irony, for the cheerful exaggeration marks an elementary aspect of his works of art in order to break the spell between viewer and object and to initiate a dialogue.

In his solo exhibition, Bored to be alive, at Galerie Droste (September 05 - October 04, 2025) Willehad Eilers combines painting and text to create a multi-layered exploration of emotion, pictorial conventions and the question of what "real" art is allowed to convey. The starting point for the series was an attempt to work without a plan – intuitively, calmly, without pressure. But instead of relaxation, a phase of emptiness set in, in which frustration and insight went hand in hand. "How long do I have to stare until nature finally has an effect?" says Eilers. Nature, otherwise, a symbol of retreat and relaxation, becomes a projection screen for inner turmoil.

The resulting works, which visually differ significantly from Eiler's previous oil paintings, combine idyllic landscapes with verbal intervention. Texts such as "Bored to be alive" or "Jeder kann es sehen" (Everyone can see it) overlay romantically charged depictions of nature and tip them over into the grotesque, the political, the personal. The writing does not function as a mere commentary, but as a second level of imagery – comparable to a pane of bulletproof glass that protects the motif beneath it, but at the same time distances it from the viewer.

Isabel Hernandez met the artist for an interview and our "99sec. of.".