Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

It's been very seldom that I've had the pleasure of showing work in Cape Breton, let alone in a space like this with such amazing aesthetics. The gallery at Inverness County Cultural Centre has a cathedral like design to it that is worth the effort for any artist. It also is quite malleable and makes an installation a pure pleasure.  It was great to be an assistant to the chief technician (John) who made the task so easy. The guy's a pro! Thanks to Director Kaye Robertson for making today so much fun and also so easy.  Here are a few shots taken while working on the installation. Can't wait to see it fully lit and detailed. I'll document the show after the opening on August 30th. Looking forward to it. Oh ya, happy 10th anniversary Inverness County Cultural Centre! Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS    

Five people were on a beach experiencing the ocean and sky. The first person looked at the sea, but he did not hear the tern crying in the sun. The second person knelt down and felt the sand, but did not taste the salt air on her tongue. The third person wore shoes and liked to collect beach stones, but did not feel the beach sand between his toes. The fourth person had a blackberry and took pictures of the sun set, but she did not smell the eel grass along the shore. The fifth person heard a ballad being sung in the distance, but did not see the missing boats. Steven Rhude Wolfville, NS

Inverness County Centre for the Arts  August 30th - September 29th, 2013                           http://www.invernessarts.ca/ "You can't know who you are until you know where you are."    - Wendell Barry Inverness, Cape Breton   Steven Rhude: Finding Nova Scotia . The exhibition explores Rhude’s development as an painter after his move to Fox Island, (near Canso) Nova Scotia in 1990.  Rhude’s adopted province of Nova Scotia has inspired a number of unusual paintings by the artist over the last twenty three years. Featuring a hybrid space of objects and rural context, Rhude has consistently been creating engaging imagery with under currents of humor and irony, couched in the significance of place in contemporary society. Rhude is one of a small breed of social realists still practicing this form of expression in Nova Scotia.  Situated within his regional landscape, think of...

Ebb and Flow (Dory), o/c, 36"x 60", Steven Rhude The Romantics were prompted to seek exotic subjects and to travel to far off places. They failed to realize that, though the transcendental must involve the strange and unfamiliar, not everything strange or unfamiliar is transcendental. - Mark Rothko He mused on finding a place. When place is just really something that transcends the material - the arbitrary... like Boundaries. Boarders. Geography. Incorporation. Lunenburg. The picture plane. One point perspective. Paint brushes. Canvas. Big box stores. Dollar stores. Social position. Counterculture.  MapQuest... and Google Search. Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

A series of paintings exhibited in Inverness at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts. The Burning - 1, oil on panel, 24"x 24", Steven Rhude The Burning - 2, oil on panel, 24"x 24", Steven Rhude The Burning - 3, oil on panel, 24"x 24", Steven Rhude The Burning, - 4, oil on panel, 24"x 24", Steven Rhude The burning - 5, oil on panel, 24"x 24", Steven Rhude Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

 The Life magazine scam - "We need a picture of your house for a layout on how ugly houses are before the aluminum siding is added".  - from the movie The Tin Men , 1987 dark comedy, written and directed by Barry Levinson Before Tin Town, o/c, 36" x 48", Emma Butler Gallery  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXBgEpUlPVg Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

"There is a dependence in the region that breeds a culture of defeatism."  (Stephen Harper, CBC News, May 30, 2002) An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterised by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs.[6] Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalised education.[6] In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education (although citizenship was also largely hereditary). Wikipedia "There's unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that it's only through government favours that there's going to be economic progress, or that's what you look to …That kind of can't-do attitude is a problem in this country but it's obviously more serious in regions that have had have-not status for a long time."  (Stephen Harper, Toronto Sun, Ma...