A Freaky Meltdown for Gotham

“I don’t paint what I want to see; I paint what I paint.” Willehad Eilers, aka Wayne Horse, said about his work while I visited his studio to check out a new body of work he recently presented at The Armory Show, Droste Gallade and Management. And while this could be heard as a nonchalant, get-off-my-case statement, it actually reveals just how intimate and important his process is, grotesque and preposterous visuals aside.

After having his work in a group show in NYC last year, this presentation feels like his big entrance into the Big Apple. I say this because it was clearly taken into account as these works took shape. Reflecting on his ongoing theme of humans learning how to touch each other, Eilers switched the scenery in which his main protagonist, the crowd, is awkwardly getting physical and overly physical. Somewhere between gently reaching and violently grasping, the horde of human and human-like freaks turns any gathering (biblical, mythical, familiar, official) into a savage ruckus. Only now, they’re moved from the shadows of Schwarzwald, fancy ballrooms, ocean horizons, beaches, or beachside towns to less impressive, sterile, high-rise office spaces.

With a vista of a crooked city in the background (a nod to Gotham), sometimes theatrically behind the red velvet curtains, the idea is to show the beastly side of human nature. The raw, untamable side that’s inherently within us, no matter how much we hide it behind our looks, our attitude, and our act. Even the most suave characters drop to their most brutish selves, getting involved in absurd or obscene scenes. And Eilers depicts this in language that feels like Rubens had a freaky meltdown set to Wagner’s earth-shaking, monumental uproar. With a snow-white protagonist dominating each scene, the paintings take on a glowing, almost angelic effect that pierces the otherwise grandiose, fleshy madness, only to instantly collapse into demonic, red-blooded eyes. Whether referencing the nativity scene, the myths of Romulus and Remus, or Saturn (devouring his son), they’re essentially long-shot takes on human estrangement inside corporate, modern-day towers of Babel. —Saša Bogojev