Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

Water Taxi, oil on masonite, 24" x 24", Emma Butler Gallery   What makes me happy? Well it’s typical of me to look up the etymology of the word “Happy” first. What I found was the old English approach - lucky, favoured by fortune, greatly pleased and content. Happy medium, happy ending, oh happy days…one of my favourites is “happy hour”. I’ve always believed that a painter operates at a particular crossroads. It’s a problematic location, but assuming that I’m living in that strange twilight between the tangible world I belong to and the painted world I create, well that is one aspect of living that makes me happy.  Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

  Port de Grave Peddler, oil on canvas, 38" x 41", Steven Rhude "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."  Henry David Thoreau Making subject matter is a preoccupation with painters that value narrative. However, narrative is not always so willing or apparent a partner to the painter until well after the fact; that is, well after a visual encounter may have taken place and time has lapsed. The painter relies on memory, notes, drawings, etc., to re kindle the experience, but eventually it is the unpacking of a scene by the subconscious and the recurrence of its characteristics that evolve to the point where a commitment to canvas is made, and a painting is eventually executed.  I'm particularly fond of the fishing community of Port de Grave, Newfoundland. It's one of those places that seems to transport me to a particular crossroads where I tend to operate. It's that strange twilight between the tangible world I belong to and th