Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

   Boy with Buoy, oil on canvas, 44"x40", Steven Rhude "Our way of working can not be called a movement because each of us has many and severe reservations about the others' works, and because we are not using regionalism as a gimmick but as a collective noun to cover what so many painters, writers, and photographers have used - their own environment..." [1] Greg Curnoe "The separate problems and opportunities of the individual regions of Canada have bred regional modes of thought, made all the more distinctive by the way in which artists and writers have picked out the unique features at the expense of features held in common." J. Wrenford Watson [2] "We are now at a crossroads, we have the impact of technological change that effects the way we produce and consume arts and culture. We have the world on our flat screens." Alain Pineau [3] Greg Curnoe was an unabashed regionalist at a time when form

Hear are two fine regional group shows to take away the winter blues! The first one is hosted by Gallery 78 in Fredericton New Brunswick.  It is titled Our Friends and Neighbours. It features artists from Nova Scotia and P.E.I.  Along with myself, other exhibitors (and good friends) are Gordon Macdonald, Susan Patterson, and Tom Forrestall. The beauty of their work speaks for itself.  G allery 78 has a long and distinguished history in Canada while cultivating a dedicated and mature stable of artists such as Bruno and Molly Bobak and Joe Plaskett to name a few. The range of expression available at this gallery, and their superb building puts them on a must see list for the gallery goer. This exhibit showcases the work of artists traditionally connected with the landscape for years, yet reflects a diversity of realism and visual attitudes. Hope you enjoy it.   Three Barrels on a Beach, oil on board, Steven Rhude                                              Check the sho

 A Portrait of Lucy Publicover, Graphite on Paper, 9"x14", Steven Rhude  I curse this headland; this place  - it's dreams cast about,  Just as I watched my sons go down So,  shall you watch your  family daughter out. Lucy Publicover is a myth; a piece of folklore passed around the winter table when I lived in Fox Island many years ago. The telling of it to me is only a distant memory now, the details and accuracy are as vague as a ship disappearing into the fog. Perhaps I should have written it down, but at the time it just didn't seem that important to me. I had other things to do. So, I filed it away where most stories go, deep into the subconscious, until one day - provoked by a  gesture and a  winters dream, the memory of this myth returned to me long enough to recognise that a community's psychological characteristics can be bound up in a moments pose. The time, facts and the image of the event are now irrelevant, but the dream is not. It was

 "We no longer need an art that is perceptual. We need an art that is conceptual."           Antony Gormley (Turner prize winner 1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fje0JEvzG50 Antony Gormley, Days of Fire, 2008 "The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance." - Leonardo da Vinci Manual Skills Should one should consider skill as the essential component to great art? I hope not. However, the above statement by Antony Gormley reflects the view that many post artists of today have toward the legacy of academic skills. An old battle to say the least, and Gormley does not seem to add much to the debate. As a winner of the prestigious Turner prize in 1994, one could hardly expect him to rally the troops in defense of Classical drawing. But as I believe the legacy of skill may still have some merit - even in these post modern times, I am compelled to respond.  In a digital age it seems to be an uncontested given that artistic ne

                                                       Burning the Image Historically, we usually associate the reformation with the religious split within Western Christianity initiated by Luther, Calvin and other early Protestants. In general  Northern Europe, with  the exception of Ireland and pockets of  Britain, turned Protestant. Bloodshed reigned as exemplified in France and the St. Bartholowmew's Day Massacre. Western civilization was never the same.  But casualties were not just human during this schism; many works of art were also burned or destroyed by iconoclasts (in Germany the term used was Bildersturm or image storm ). As was sometimes the case with church wall painting, art was literally white washed over and hidden from the iconoclastic fury of crowds - intentionally protected, yet also eerily forshadowing the stark white interiors of the contemporary public art museum which embodied the anti-art, minimalism and conceptualism to come some four hundred years