Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

                    House of Lace, (Ochre Pit), Emma Butler Gallery, oil on canvas, 36" x 48", Steven Rhude For centuries in art, certainly since the renaissance, there has always been depicted for contemplation a house configured in mind and spirit. It may take numerous shapes and forms, but invariably it is not just "a house", but  "the house." However, whose house it is may often be up for debate, and to whom the house belongs is still collectively an issue in the twenty first century. Some consider it a house prepared - a spiritual house, others think of it as a psychological house - one in which we associate our multitude of experiences within a structure of faith and mental latitude, rooms of growth, sex, and change... rooms of sadness and grief... rooms of death and  revelation, rooms of  social exchange and the expression of ideas that attach or eventually dissolve within the walls of our individual or personal mem...

                        A Moment at Youghall Beach, O/C, 40" x 60", private collection, Steven Rhude "To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul."  Simone Weil In this age of the digital revolution, the beach, wherever it may be, may become the most sensible and tangible place to reflect on for our well being - body and soul. When we are on a beach it cleanses our collective predisposition to ponder the intransigent qualities of our existence. A beach washes those concerns away. Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS