Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

                                    Briar Island's End, Grand Passage Lighthouse, oil on masonite, 16" x 20", Steven Rhude The overtone of the title implies the setting of the sun on a crystal like day. Briar Island is two ferry's in, or if you happen to be one of the two hundred or so residents that live there, two ferry's out. When my son and I arrived at the Briar Island Lodge to check in for the night, it was completely empty. No staff, no restaurant chef, no one to show us to our room. A call to the manager, who wasn't on the island, connected me with a local resident who gave us a room key and said "enjoy the lodge - it's all yours!" Later that evening, a dirt road led us to the north tip of the island where the Grand passage Lighthouse is located. There's also the Westport Search and Rescue Station's presence to remind one of the perils of the sea. I've always been fascinated with the concurrent image of the sun caressing a lig

                                         The Last Canadian, oil on canvas, 38" x 52", Steven Rhude "You are a big country. You are the kindest country in the world. You are like a really nice apartment over a meth lab." - Robin Williams, Comedian As a comedian, Robin Williams was aware of the use of disparate elements in art, whether it was words or pictures - it was grist for his occupational mill. These disparate elements have been around a while, and were employed in the existentialist philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, shaping a twentieth century world that became more absurd than understandable. Today, we are constantly confronted in life and art, by artists with characteristics in their work that are incomparable and indeed appear at first nonsensical -  but the ritual is far from  meaningless.  Well, it may go without saying, we are not the kindest country in the world anymore. Robin checked out, and our country continues to search for the

                                      White Ghost Shed, Digby Neck, oil on canvas, 40" x 60", Steven Rhude "In the history of art, white isn't as pure as we think. Over the course of history it's been loaded with ideologies that are divisive and at times even dangerous, so dangerous in fact, that white may just be the darkest colour of them all."  - James Fox, British Art Historian  The story goes that Whistler and his painting of Joanna Hiffernan, that young woman in white, standing on a bear rug, changed the course of modern art. After Whistler, white was never the same, and eventually became the cold, unwelcoming, and exclusive colour of the artistic elite. Public galleries today still emit the residue of the white cube that marked twentieth century austerity and minimalism. A cultural despiritualization. Gazing through the window of a fishing shed, while Sam and I were waiting for a ferry to Briar Island, I didn't get a cluttered image of typical fis