Port de Grave Peddler

 

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 that painted world of creation. The peddler, or cyclist, has reoccurred  in my paintings over the years and Port de Grave is the latest installment. 

 My dreams from childhood to adulthood have been traversed with images of a cyclist, and it is fair to say it is no stranger to art. Cycling was also a subject that mattered greatly to Canadian artist Greg Curnoe who painted his ten speed several times and even made self portraits in his cycling gear. They are some of the most unique images in Canadian art. Mainstream cinema has over the years certainly used the bicycle as a potent symbol of opportunity and exploration as well. And in class driven Britain, the very first episode (1960) of Coronation Street ends with Ken Barlow snobbishly pondering his working class father and brother as they patch a bicycle tire in front of the living room fireplace with Susan his date assisting. 

The world has changed since 1960 and the cultural explosion of cycling is now in top gear, and is a powerful icon of community and independence. I'm not finished with bicycles and I doubt they're finished with me. My "peddler" or cyclist, is not only a subject - but something in which the bike is both a literal and metaphorical means of exploration. 

Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS