Black colour lines, quickly, unclean and occasionally with solidly material density applied, branches to abstract forms by closer examination and only matures into more specific images with increasing distance. Although the scenery then can be deciphered clearer, it isn’t more tangible. Agglomerations of people, whose faces are distorted, seem to be cooped up within the artwork frames, like in a very confined space. Only slowly it is possible to identify individual scenes, as settings over settings merge together, like a big party where you try to find your lost companion. Happy Holidays Forever – as the title of the exhibition indicates, the viewer finds himself situated within a venue full of lust, luxury and enthusiasm. But with a closer look the event becomes fragile and the figurative image breaks up into rough, uncontrolled lines.
The German artist Wayne Horse (1981), also known by his civil name Willehad Eilers, tries to highlight this exact complexity and paradox within his artistic work. The Amsterdam based artist deals with the ambivalent wealth of the western society for a longer period now – the “wallowing of pigs in paradise”, as Eilers says. “The wealth and the material abundance of human beings today left marks in their self-perception. 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. Oneself and every moment has to be special, the documentation of it gets fed to the internet (un)filtered. Photographic evidences replace inner feelings of beauty or pain. By looking at social media the bitter taste of the feeling that everyone enjoys a continual, ever lasting vacation - a reckless moment – remains. Wayne Horse’s contextual themes and his pictorial technique, which brings up this composition of lines, emphasize how fragile this journey is. Sure is that the viewer is allowed to approach the artists scenery with humour and irony, as the cheerful oversubscription marks an elementary aspect of his artworks to break the spell between viewer and object and to initiate the dialogue.
Within the exhibition Happy Holidays Forever Wayne Horse presents besides mainly large-size canvases, paper works and an on-site installation. As Eilers is also known for the production of video installations and working with text and typography, the attendees can look forward to further visual and auditory impressions.
