The Lofoten Art Festival 1993
Painting was strongly represented in the first four years of the festival. Thor Erdahl, who participated in 1993, can be said to belong to an extension of the Norwegian modernist, expressive painting tradition in which the landscape is often central. His paintings are almost always strongly linked to the place where they were made, more specifically Lofoten. But even though his paintings are dependent on this landscape to come into being, they are in no way dependent on this context when they are shown. From The Festival that Wouldn't Sink, The Lofoten Art Festival 1991-2013, Svolvær 2015
This year's main exhibition featured Dagny and Finn Hald, who showed graphics and ceramic objects. The idea of focusing on a main exhibition with a nationally recognised artist who could draw attention to the festival was proposed in the municipality's earliest plans for a festival.
From 1993 onwards, the festival followed this up. The festival itself emphasises crafts in its programme, and ceramist Astrid Hestholm demonstrates Japanese raku firing of ceramics outside the artist centre. The Danish artist and author Dea Trier Mørch receives attention both in the press and in the festival's own newspaper.