Jonas Pihl: Chaosmosis, 2009. Installation view. Wall painting with sculptural reliefs, acrylic on plastic and wall.

In the making of his first solo show in New York, painter Jonas Pihl has put to focus the painter´s groundmaterial: The paint itself. A fluent material in the process, and a still, frozen entity in the finished work. When fluent it is potentially capable of making a random splash shape when accidentally dropped on the floor, or when thrown on a canvas as an actionpainterly gesture. In his work Jonas Pihl is interested in merging the formal and the conceptual aspects. To make the form of the painting itself talk about the content, the paint, Jonas Pihl has taken various shapes of randomly made paint splashes and used them as a design for stilized plastic splash shapes in order to make a sort of meta painting, a moebius band between the painting and the paint. As the figures in Jonas Pihl´s paintings are sometimes stretched to the extreme, so is the surface tension of the stilized paint splash, turning the shape of the painting into a sculpture. Jonas Pihl´s work often revolve around the idea about the paradox of merging contradictions, and in this exhibition the pieces themselves become paradoxes merging the contradiction between the flat painting and the voluminous sculpture. The sculptural form contradicts the renaissance notion of the painting as beeing ”the window to the world”, the optical illusion of perspective. In Chaosmosis Jonas Pihl has litterally turned this concave idea inside out, transforming it to the convex, sculptural object. The idea of painting flat images that sometimes resemble threedimensional forms and endless perspectives on a threedimensional sculptural object instead of on a flat canvas creates a conflict between ”fake” and ”real”, and not just in the conceptual sense, but also in the formal process of making the painting. A challenge is beeing made in handpainting the allready technically challenging figures on the bumps and twists and turns of the voluminous object, and Jonas Pihl uses this real form to sometimes emphasize, other times defy the trompe l´oeil perspective of these optical illusional painted figures. This results in the warped imagery becoming further morphed. And in passing by the painting/object, the viewer plays a part in putting the still image to life, as the real perspective of the sculpture changes the fake perspective of the painting in front of the eyes of the percipient. The paradox of the amalgamation between the optical illusion of the still image, and the tangible and changing real form of the sculpture builds a bridge between the intangible and our world.
The battle between trompe l´oeil and reality is emphasized by the site specific wall painting, underneath the sculptural pieces, that Jonas Pihl has created in the gallery during the month prior to the opening of the exhibition.
Like the fractal each brushstroke, each splash of paint, becomes pieces in the puzzle, and each piece is the same as the big assembled puzzle. Each splash is part of a bigger splash. Everything is connected in micro- and macrocosmos like a huge rhizomatic entanglement. When a cartoon character is making a painting, that whole painting is contained in a single brushstroke, a single splash of paint. It looks so easy, but it is heavy in the making, like a good pop tune. Each detail contains the DNA of the whole painting like the fractal evolving frame by frame. You are inevitably drawn in. You want to get to the end of that perspective of frames, but it turns out, you are allready standing in a frame similar to the one at the end of the tunnel.

11. september - 10. oktober 2009

The Chelsea Terminal Warehouse, 636 West 28th Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY 10001

web site:www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/

Tuesday - Saturday 11 am-6 pm