Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

"There is a dependence in the region that breeds a culture of defeatism."  (Stephen Harper, CBC News, May 30, 2002) An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterised by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs.[6] Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalised education.[6] In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education (although citizenship was also largely hereditary). Wikipedia "There's unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that it's only through government favours that there's going to be economic progress, or that's what you look to …That kind of can't-do attitude is a problem in this country but it's obviously more serious in regions that have had have-not status for a long time."  (Stephen Harper, Toronto Sun, Ma...

Phantom, Steven Rhude, o/p, 24"x48", Argyle Fine Art The question on our lips is no longer "why?" Or, "how did this happen?" It's too late for that.  There is a sense that we are now rummaging through the post modern junkyard and looking for answers. It need not necessarily be only a rational search. This is where the artist comes back into the cultural picture; armed with material from the past, and contextualizing it in the present. “Society needs symbols, myths, narratives…and modernity cannot just be rationalization”, explains Jeffrey Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology and Co-Director, Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University.  “We need to understand the power, the energy and the glue that keeps civil society together and motivates people”, from Occupy to Tahrir Square, says Alexander, by trying to redefine the cultural in social theory. Myths, narratives and iconic symbols have disappeared in the course...