I sat down with Willehad Eilers, aka Wayne Horse, who will be showing five new paintings and an installation at the Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse, as part of the group exhibition The Distorted Party. This following conversation is centered around his new works, as well as The Distorted Party.
Willehad works with Galerie Droste and Harlan Levey Projectcts. The Distorted Party runs in the framework of Lille3000, until November 9, 2025, at Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse 32 rue de la Monnaie, 59000 Lille, and is curated by Siegrid Demyttenaere and Sofie Lachaert.
For more information, please check out their website.
Check out our previous interview with Wayne HERE.
Hi Willehad, it’s been a little over two years since we’ve had you in the hot seat. It’s a pleasure to have you back. This time I’ll be focusing on your newest exhibition. So, first question, what’s your inspiration behind this new body of work?
Willehad: I am revisiting the theme of the Dancing Plague for this exhibition. The dancing plague, or the dance epidemic is a real event that happened in 1518 in Strassbourg, france. A group of up to 400 people started dancing frantically for weeks, resulting in complete exhaustion and, in some cases, death. I am dealing with the balance in between attraction and disgust, enjoyment and suffering, in a lot of my works, and the dancing plague is a very good example of this.
Did you do any form of specific research for these new works?
Willehad: I did deal with the dancing plague in the past already. I made two paintings and a performance held at Art Brussels with Harlan Levey Projects in 2023. The new paintings in themselves are a research deeper into the topic. The working period to complete the 5 paintings and installation for the show was nearly half a year. That, and the madness breaking loose all around us in that timespan was more than enough to digest and spit out onto the canvas.
The Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse is a former religious institution. How did the site’s sacred, peaceful past influence the way you thought about your contribution to The Distorted Party?
Willehad: The Museum De L’hospice Comtesse, is a very special place, it used to be a chapel and hospital that was founded in 1237, so it dates back to medieval times. This building has seen a lot. You get a sense of that when walking through it, and its courtyard, where different architectures melt into each other. I kept what I learned about the building in mind while working on my canvasses in the studio, but it was when I came to Lille for two weeks to create the installation in the courtyard that the building took an influence on me.
Initially I wanted to create a pile of suffering animal/human/meat mixcreatures, in festive outfits suffering during their dance. But as I sat two days in the courtyard, my idea changed. I felt I needed to make the courtyard itself a vital part of the work, bind it in more strongly. That is when the nuns started to appear. At first I thought it would only be one or two, but as the work grew I started to realize that it would be a ‘nun-only’ event. The somberness of the dresses brings out the extremity of the dance-obsession. The installation melts into the courtyard. It belongs there. I was very happy how that fell into place.
The title “The Distorted Party” conjures images of revelry, chaos, and social dysfunction. How do you interpret the idea of a “distorted party,” and how does your work engage with it?
Willehad: When I was approached for the show by Siegrid and Sophie of LSD2, it seemed like the theme was made for me. Ever since I began to paint painful festivities in 2017, one would never be wrong to speak of the result as a ‘distorted party’. So no big adjustments to fit the theme on my part.
The exhibition contrasts chaos and beauty, distortion and clarity—ideas that seem to resonate with your visual language. How do you personally interpret those dualities in your own work?
Willehad: Lately I have been getting more and more interested how to make the way I paint an active statement. For example in the work ‘Schweinerei’ this is very evident. The paint is smeared and scratched violently, almost with disgust onto the canvas. The resulting swine, licking, holding, consuming each other have a particularly serious feel to them. As the emotion they’re made with is serious and harsher than in my usual works. As if I had wanted to get away from the canvas or did not agree with what is happening on there. The piece is powerfully ugly. Which makes it one of my favorite paintings I ever made.
The show invites reflection on contemporary crises like climate change, inequality, and post-COVID anxiety. Do these themes enter your work consciously, or do they seep in through the emotional or narrative layers?
Willehad: I do not make works about things that I already know. The work process is a way to sort my mind. I choose issues that trouble me, that I do not know what to think about, as topics for my works. This gives me a chance to be actively busy with the subject without having to put it into words. In the best cases, the paintings will make me realise what I think. I do not censor or question during work. Each morning I will sit a while before starting and inspect what I did. Then react on that.
This technique does not often deliver conclusions, but I am not after conclusions. I want to keep the mind rolling. I do not deliver statements or messages to the viewers. My paintings are meant to serve as a battleground for the viewers to test their morales and believes.
Your figures often look like they’re caught mid-gesture at a surreal gathering—drunk, praying, scheming, or celebrating. Are you intentionally staging social scenarios in your compositions?
Willehad: My paintings are arranged like a snapshot. Characters are cut. When standing in front of the painting, you are basically standing in the middle of it, following the logic of the painting. I work big scale, so it would be possible to ‘arrange the stage’ like the old masters did. But I do not want to treat the painting like a stage. It is a way to digest what the world throws at us. And that is often too much to take. I want to transmit that feeling with the paintings too. Like they were a window that we look into, that is about to break any second. I suppose that, in itself, is an intentional staged social scenario. But in general, I choose themes that I long to think more about. I deal with what I observe, and cannot file away in my head.
Is there a personal or emotional connection between your own experiences of parties or social spaces and how you depict them in this show?
Willehad: My paintings are always very emotional, at least to myself. I labour dilligently and often joylessly on a painting until the moment that it starts speaking to me. From that point on the painting will suggest and dictate its course. I enthusiastically, happily follow.
I have, and am still, dealing with the theme of celebration a lot in my work. I do not do this because I like to go to parties a lot. Possibly rather because I don’t, and I need to attend some kind of overboarding gathering, even if it is in solitude. I find a celebration a good example to work with ambivalence. Everything is set to be fantastic, but at what/whose expense? Every light throws a shadow. Desire flirting with disgust. This is a string of thought I have not managed to shake. I am still interested in it. I still have the feeling there is more to discover.
In this show I allow my frustration and anger to take a seat in the front row. The paintings are created more expressively than I used to dare. After 5 years of working with oil, I felt a certain comfort creeping up on me. I felt I was starting to hide behind painterly tricks. So this time, I forced myself out of this corner. Don’t be timid.
Distortion often brings humor, but also discomfort. What’s the balance you’re aiming for between satire and sincerity in your works, and this exhibition?
Willehad: I see humor as a tool. Something like a blade, that you keep sharpening all your life until the moment comes that you need to use it. It is all fun and games until your life comes crashing down. Your loved ones leave, your body deteriorates, you know, all that comes after the peak. If you do not believe in god or fate, humor is the way to deal with horrors.
I don’t ever see my work as satire. I am sincere all the way through, even, or especially, in flat numb jokes. Satire suggests that I would have a better idea, knew of a way it should go, but I am clueless, like most of us. Hoping for the best. I try to show my sympathy towards life. My understanding for seemingly wrong or bad decisions. Weak and scared stiff. Finding ways to cope.
This exhibition, with the dancing plague as a main theme plays on that. An unexplainable phenomenom. A ritual of some kind that we willingly sacrifice ourselves for, get lost in. Jumping at the opportunity to lose responsibillity. Let go. Join the flow and disappear in a joyfull bliss. Choice is torture, the chance to hand over free will to any bigger force is tempting but unheroic, so we re in conflict.
Did the context of being in a group show with other artists under this theme push your work in any new direction?
Willehad: I think the show was curated very well by Siegrid Demyttenaere and Sophie Lachaert. Kenny Dunkans impressive installation in the chapel and Audrey Large’s works in dialogue to my paintings in the salon, but I especially felt a great connection with the works of Nadia Naveau. I think there is a similar approach played out in very different ways in between our works, which made it an interesting coexistence in the space. Basically my nun installation mirrors her sculpture garden in the sick room and vice versa. We were installing at the same time, and I for one, did not have a fixed plan for what I was to do yet, when arriving in Lille. So it is possible that I was inspired by her room when starting to build mine.
The theme itself was so close to my usual field that I did not have the feeling that I had to venture into unknown fields thematically. I saw it as a further dive into my world. Which in itself is selfmanipulating and redefining constantly. It keeps marching, every once in a while I get the chance to adjust the direction, but generally I have to follow. That is the artist life, in my opinion. I have to serve, I do not get to choose.
The figures in your work seem grotesque yet familiar—like exaggerated versions of ourselves. Are they meant to reflect something universal, or are they more rooted in specific people or archetypes?
Willehad: ‘Grotesque yet familiar’ is a description I can live with. I suppose that is what many of us think when staring into the mirror for too long. I avoid specific depictions, I want to keep the paintings and characters as open for interpretation as I can. I want to juggle repulsiveness in a way that makes it attractive enough to rest our eyes for a while on. I hardly ever paint defined/correct faces to avoid giving the impression that I present the viewer with a set statement, a definite story that they can lean back and enjoy. I want them to have to dive into what is seen and create a meaning from their own associations. Hence the less specific the better. I still have a long way to go…
There’s a sense of narrative interruption in your images—like we’ve walked into the middle of a bizarre scene. Do you see your work as part of a larger narrative or mythology?
Willehad: I try to evoke the feeling that the viewer is at least knee-deep in the mud when taking in the paintings. To get to the painting you will have to have walked through your own bizarre scene, so to say. I am exploring the heartless strive for happiness at any cost, which, in the end, probably nobody wants. And the need for happiness, warmth, closeness is a sweet and relatable one. It is all too much to put into words.
What role does playfulness or absurdity serve in your artistic process? Do you ever surprise yourself with what comes out?
Willehad: Playfulness and surprise are some of the most important factors of my work. If I knew what a painting would turn out like, there would be no need to paint it. It has to be ‘an adventure’ of some kind. A back and forth in between my desire and the reality of the painting. Together we get to a place that I could not have thought up beforehand.
Your work has spanned painting, drawing, video, and performance. Do you see all of it as part of one big “party,” or do the mediums offer different voices in your visual vocabulary?
Willehad: I think it is an attitude thing. A certain tone. The medium does not matter that much. As long as the tone is right, one can make any medium work. But finding the right tone is a difficult task. It has to be honest, which should make it simple, which it is in retrospect. But the way there is difficult.
Do you see your characters as masks, or do they expose something deeper beneath the surface?
Willehad: I see my characters as fleshy rubber suits, controll centers which you wrap loosely around scared souls, which will then witness the atrocities their bodies are capable of from deep within the dome.
In a time of global instability, the party metaphor can feel quite political. Do you see “The Distorted Party” as a reflection of our social or political climate?
Willehad: Yes, but I am not concerned with specific events, it is impossible to keep them out of the work, but I am more interested in the human reaction and way to cope. Not the specific political development or consequence.
Ok Wayne, last question. If The Distorted Party is both celebration and warning, where do you personally sit in that spectrum—closer to the dancefloor or the exit?
Willehad: I am Tom cruise in this situation. I take my chair, turn it around sit on it with spread legs and laugh, showing my beautiful, impressively sized teeth. I laugh until my eyes water and the veigns on my neck and forehead start showing. My heart is pumping eagerly and my stomach is uneasy.