Pleasantville

Pleasantville, oil on panel, 24" x 48", Steven Rhude

For a while now I have wanted to do a painting which summed up my feelings about the decline of rural Nova Scotia. This one comes close since the gas station is so integral to commerce and the transference of goods. Gas stations are a little like parking garages, they are all mostly self serve experiences now that leave one pondering existential situations between place "A" and place "B".

 Encountering an abandoned rural gas station with a Yard Jockey perched atop a giant quasi Rubix Cube, I recall  thinking what it is I stopped to look at, or perhaps more to the point, through looking, is there a process or set of rules to  follow in solving a post modern problem such as this one. I don't believe there is. Hopper's gas station paintings are alive with people and his brand of solitude evokes a transition. Pleasentville can't do this. The problem is not black and white, and the rules keep changing as this is written. The gas pumps struck me as being wrapped as though conveying some sad Christo like joke being played out, with one tarp black and the other white. One can only guess what they are being preserved for as the tarps alter the angular form of the pumps.

The Yard Jockey, stoic - yet impish, glances away, as if anticipating another arrival that we know will never appear. The title "Pleasantville" (there actually is such a place in Nova Scotia) belies the true nature of this image. There is really nothing very pleasant about it at all.

Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS