Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

Ten Pennies, whereabouts unknown, Steven Rhude "If he is to turn his notoriety into immortality, he needs the backing of public institutions and the praise of serious critics."   Sarah Thornton, Is nothing sacred -  The Tate Modern Stamp of Approval - Damien Hirst Retrospective http://www.economist.com/node/21550767 Branding  I have come to believe there is a great deal of subjectivity that comprises much of what we call a public permanent collection,  and how that collection can be programmed to edify or usher gallery patrons into the fold of post modern ideology. Changing directions in contemporary art practise is one thing, but branding that change is the point where the public (dare I say consumer) comes in. Sure, I'm an artist - but I'm also Joe Public and I like to see what the Public Art Gallery is up to.  However, even the best programs can crash with the constant blurring of artistic intent. Ironically, and perhaps to the detriment of t...

Fish Fluke, oil on canvas, 40"x72", Steven Rhude He had a love/hate relationship with the radio. The background noise leading into the six o'clock news always sounded melodramatic and contrived to him. All messengers bringing evil reports. Universal screams or fighter jets, protesters chanting slogans indecipherable; it really didn't matter anymore. The tape could have been recording a high school basketball game in Des Moines, Iowa.  His black Lab eating supper made more sense to him. Reporting had become an exercise in satire. He should know, so did his art. Who could really take it seriously anymore, like when a newscast was about to end there was always one absurd or quasi sad, or conversely lighthearted story for consumption. So he only caught the tail end of it. What did it matter - dust to dust and all that biblical stuff. It's only bricks and mortar; actually wood and mortar in this case - an isolated place called Fish Fluke Point on the eas...

Here is a slide show of work from the last few years. Enjoy! http://www.flickr.com/photos/httpwwwstevenrhudecomphotos/show/

Road From West Berlin, oil on panel, 18"x24", Steven Rhude, Argyle Fine Art Part 2 This is a poor state, the opposition always screamed. But the Boss said: "There is a passel of pore folks living in it and no mistake, but the state isn't poor. It is just a question of who has got his front feet in the trough when slopping time comes. And I aim to do me some shoving and thump me some snouts." And he leaned forward to the crowd with the shagged - down forelock and the bulging eyes, and he had lifted his right arm to demand of them and of the hot sky, "Are you with me? Are you with me?" And the roar had come.                                                         Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men Huey Long made a splash in Louisiana politics as a member of the Louisiana Railroad Commission fighting corporate monopolies and reducing uti...

Road to West Berlin, oil on panel, 18"x24", Steven Rhude, Argyle Fine Art Part 1 To get there you follow the 103 southwest and then break off. You like Halifax but you want more. And it's not a highway that comes at you; rather it's a highway that goes to you, into you, and through you. Sharp bends and turns are much too loud to lull you into sleep like you may find in other parts, where the road is long and straight. Nope, no seduction... no mirage. Just coastal capillaries seemingly unconnected. Cherry Hill, East Port Medway, Port Medway, East Berlin, West Berlin, Eagle Head, Beach Meadows, and Brooklyn. Comforting names unless your thinking about Huey Pierce Long (the Kingfish)... and why Nova Scotia isn't all that much different.   "Then I closed the door and went down the hall. That had been the night of the fourth of April. I was almost sorry, the next day as I looked out the high window at the mass of people filling the streets and the wide ...

Burning the Light, oil on canvas, 36"x40", Steven Rhude, Gallery 78  The question for a lot of painters is, why can't we just make a painting? So many artists past and present have gone down this road towards a goal of pure painting. Routes like abstraction, hard edge, formalism, minimalism... and so on. For some, it is unnecessary to have a narrative - a divergent path is chosen in light of the lengthy history involved with image making in the west. So the narrative is eschewed in favour of alternative processes. I've tried this myself in the past, only to find the powers of the external world are to extensive to ignore - for everything could be other than it is. We are sometimes seduced into thinking that ordinariness is a moment in time when nothing of significance occurs. The problem is, there are no moments when nothing occurs. The lighthouse has been withdrawn from the world of human habitation. No one stands in the light and looks down on the sea from t...

Dory and Museum, oil on canvas, 40"x60", Steven Rhude, Gallery 78 Beauty is the fume - track of necessity. This thought is therapeutic. If after several applications you do not find relief, consult your family physician.                                                                                                                                      Robert Penn Warren  

Shed on a Truck, oil on canvas, 36"x48", Steven Rhude, private collection If they stay they stay, if they go they go; On the Mulgrave Road it's the choice you make. There's an axe in the stump and a fork in the row, Or a bag to pack and a train to take. Charles Bruce 

The Huguenot, graphite on paper, 11"x15", Steven Rhude Some people think portraits are about people or maybe an individual. Well they're not. They're about landscape and place, about emotion and experience - about perception and history. Our history is not written in our palms; it's written in our faces. Steven Rhude, Wolfville, Nova Scotia

Sunday Morning - Mother and Child, Steven Rhude "A thimble full of red is redder than a bucketful."                                                          Henri Matisse 

From the children's book Natalie's Glasses, Steven Rhude "I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows."                                                                                                    Emily Carr

House of  the Keeper, oil on canvas, 24"x36", Argyle Fine Art  Real Estate Agent:   Where are you, you should be back here by now - got more to do here than just hear about some god forsaken rotted out old building; probably rats and mice chomping on leftover bits of seagull droppings. You lost your mind or something? Told ya you would never get me out there. You wanna buy this -  do it without me. Stink'in salt infested wasteland. I can't even get a decent breakdown on the listing - just that it's declared surplus and the Feds wanna dump the stink'in thing. You ever tried negotiating with the Feds? Too much red tape; forget it! Probably laced with lead paint and  a party house for locals for all you know. Did you even go inside? Speak up I can't here you - the connections breaking up - Come back and we'll buy an industrial park in Calgary or something. The Client:  Okay, okay. I'll be home soon, but first I need to check something out... ...

Buoy and Manhole, oil on board, 20"x24", Gallery 78 The use of the road as a motif in contemporary painting should by now, stand out as a universal symbol of movement and transition. In fact, roads are by chance imbued with some of the most salient traits of modernist painting we have come to know vicariously through the hard edge works of twentieth century practitioners like America's Barnett Newman or Quebec's Guido Molinari. We could even conjure up the  godfather of modernism - Piet Mondrian and his omnipresent grid. The very linear bands of yellow used to control visual placement and movement of cars and the graphic flatness of asphalt, suggest paintings in themselves - canvases without end. Buoy and Broken Line, oil on board, 20"x24", Gallery 78 The placement and incongruity of objects in a road that is normally used for the transit of humans or goods, arrests the attention of the viewer through experiential means. Suggestions of avoidanc...