Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

                                                        Heart's Desire, oil on canvas, 23" x 60", Steven Rhude   "A car pulled up and a man got out, said as he looked in the box. "What's this for, and you're in my way, can't you see I got to get to the docks." His suit was fine and his car was sweet, and pockets were filled with cash. He looked so close at the bottom line, with a wink and a blink and a dash.    He said, "Son, there's nothing left here, why don't you just  move on,  south to the city of sin. There's lights and cars, sidewalks and bars, a meat dress in a show called Skin." I said, ''No thanks kind sir, if it's all the same - is that your suit or a silhouette? My box is full, but not with fish, rather tragedy, toil and sweat. It’s been shipped here and over there, it's even come back another colour. So tim...

                                         Two Flags, Broad Cove. oil on masonite, 11" x 14", Steven Rhude  It's really a tiny painting - about 11" x 14" in scale. It depicts a remote cove on the Avalon peninsula where a few fishermen live and congregate. They are outliers and the flags suggests something about their societal disposition. They live far away from the world of European art, and a cultural frame of reference excessively imbued with historical  discoveries. They don't think about examples of scale that reign from Michelangelo's colossal Sistine chapel to Vermeer's micro tiny Lacemaker, where it's Dutch frame may account  for more per square inch aesthetic than the work it encases. They are immune to this logic. They fish, cut wood, drive Dodge Ram trucks and are no doubt connected to the internet. They go to the Lions club, socialize, recite poetry, tell sto...

                                          Work in progress, Outlier, Ochre Pit Cove, oil on canvas, 28" x 50", Steven Rhude   The composition of place runs through us with different expressions, but the same rule always applies - it knows no chronology in an individual's life. It can be a dream place or a literal place. Place became more defined for me as I aged, and it took on memorable names like Avalon. I routinely see it while running errands in New Minas, or cutting the grass at my Wolfville home. Standing in line at the local grocery store, or with the kids at the supper table. I saw it before I was ever there, and subsequently ever since my first visit to the peninsula. This is what seduction can do to you. It rearranges your understanding of place from literal to something more mythical - dreamlike.