News of Norway, issue 8, 1998
In the intimate gallery, visitors inch their way along the walls, taking in Pihl's characteristic abstract acrylic paint creations displayed under the title Meeting Points. The title stems out of the artist's desire to make his paintings an encounter between the art and the viewer.
At first glance, his work resembles pieces of cloth or other textiles, but a closer inspection reveals the artists true medium: paint, gallons of acrylic paint. Pihl explains that lately, he has been in an exploring phase where he is searching in the material.
"I use acrylic paint and I search in the material," he explained. "I am occupied with pulling in the outer limits of the material."
For instance, acrylic paint has a tendency to bubble. Therefore it is produced in antifoam form because most artists prefer the smooth sheen acrylic paint can offer. "So I move in the opposite direction," Pihl said. "I want to make it bubble more." The bubbles seem to create a glitch in the otherwise perfectly groomed surfaces of Pihl's paintings. This is another trademark of Pihl's.
When first moving to New York in 1994 to attend the Visual School of Arts, Pihl was overwhelmed by the visual picture of New York. It is a very important source in my work, everything from the art in the museums to the visual picture of the city with the window displays and the clothes that people wear, he explained.
But Pihl was also taking in how beauty is often intertwined with garbage and other less attractive things, which in his opinion created a very rich and interesting esthetic picture.
His study of esthetic surfaces around town are then brought back to the studio and transferred onto the canvas.
"I use the majestic, beautiful surfaces, but I charge them with some sort of disturbance," he explained. Pihl is also known to cast the paint onto the canvas by using molds in which he pours gallons of paint.
Currently a graduate student at Hunter College in New York City, Pihl has other inspirational sources that in some ways stand in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of New York.
He was born in Bergen on the West Coast of Norway in 1964. As a child, growing up, he spent many hours in the surrounding mountains and woods. "I am very strongly tied to nature," he said. "It doesn't appear directly in the visual as much, but it is more the driving force behind it. It is some sort of connection with nature that [I] use in the creative process, so I always have to go home."
Every summer, Pihl travels to Bergen to spend time with family, recharge and to work. Not too far from where Pihl's family lives, in the hillside overlooking Dale and Dalefjorden, the Nordic Council of Ministers formally opened the Nordic Artists Center in May of this year. Artists, primarily from the Nordic countries but also from other parts of the world, have the opportunity to come and live at the center while developing and working with their art.
When hearing about the building of the center, Pihl applied for a summer job and has been working to help establish this cultural haven in the midst of the Norwegian nature. Pihl said that the center is working to develop an international program there as well, so he is trying to get people in the U.S. to apply.
When News of Norway spoke to Pihl a few weeks after the exhibit opened, the jitters of his first solo exhibit were finally gone. When first getting back to New York he had been unable to work for a while because getting ready for the exhibit had taken so much out of him.
Luckily, Pihl is now back in the studio. The upcoming year will be a hectic one for the young artist. This winter he will have his first exhibit in Bergen, Norway, which will be followed by two graduations.
In the summer, he will finish up at the National Academy of Art in Oslo, Norway, from where he has been an exchange student to Hunter College. Then he will graduate from Hunter College with a Master's of Fine Arts degree in the fall of 1999. Previous education also includes a degree from the Oslo College of Art and Design and studies at the School of Visual Arts in Oslo.
But perhaps what has had the greatest influence on him has been the year spent studying under Norwegian painter Jan Groth while in New York from 1996-97. According to Pihl it was extremely educational and interesting to study under a fellow countryman who knew both countries' arts traditions. "He could convey a tremendous amount of knowledge as well as skepticism," Pihl explained.
The former teacher flew down from New York to attend the opening of his student's exhibit, and rumor has it that he also bought a painting.