Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

Temple Sleep, Beijing, o/p, 24" x 48", Steven Rhude "China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world." ― Napoléon Bonaparte Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

Equilibrium #3, oil on canvas, 48" x 36", Steven Rhude This completes the "Three on Three" series of stacked buoys by the ocean. It will go off to Gallery 78 in New Brunswick in the new year. Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

Three Stacked Buoys by the Sea, oil on canvas, 50" x 42", Steven Rhude, private collection The objective of achieving balance in life is constantly being assessed owing to our knowledge of opposing forces. From family, friends, to community. The human body, diet, the life cycle - existence and mortality; the idea of spirit. Our place in the Maritimes, church, state, and equality. Relationships, close or long distance, personal or political, are forever subject to the vicissitude's of external and internal forces. Forever being analyzed, scrutinized, and catagorized. While working on this painting, my youngest son Samuel, observed that he would hold the water back, because he liked the idea that something so seemingly difficult to balance could be achieved.  I asked him how long he thought he could hold back the advancing ocean?  He replied: "for at least as long as it takes you to finish the painting." Sam has a way of leaving me at a loss for words. ...

Laura Kenney, Bedside   Steven Rhude, Burning Light   AT THE GALLERIES: Rugs, paintings shine light on architecture of coastal beacons Laura Kenney is a lively, expressive rug-hooker; Steven Rhude a quiet, intellectual painter. But the two share a passion for lighthouses, an offbeat sense of humour and a talent for their chosen medium. Their dual exhibit, I’m a Lighthouse; It’s Your Call, at Harvest Gallery in Wolfville to Nov. 16, is a cry for the preservation of lighthouses in playful and poignant pieces. “When I first read the article that lighthouses were being declared surplus I couldn’t believe it,” says Rhude, a Quebec-born, Wolfville-based painter who has also lived in Fox Island Main, Guysborough County, and Lunenburg. Similarly alarmed Kenney started a summertime mission two years ago to search out the province’s lighthouses with her two kids. She and Rhude both refer to Rip Irwin’s Lighthouses and Lights of Nova Scotia and Chris Mill...

Study for Modernity, Bay de Verde, oil on copper, 6" x 9", Steven Rhude Modernity, Bay de Verde, oil on board, 20" x 24", Steven Rhude Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

"Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal." - Gustave Courbet Stairway, Cape Spear, oil on canvas, 20" x 16", Steven Rhude Study for Modernity, oil on copper, 6" x 9", Steven Rhude Solo Buoy, oil on copper, 5 1/4" x 7 1/8", Steven Rhude Three Buoys and Box, oil on copper, 4.5" x 6", Steven Rhude Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS

"That's why I feel strongly about a lot of so called realism today which I think I've had a very bad influence on. They think it's the amount of detail and that really isn't it. Yes, a detail should be there and it should be carried far, but the picture's got to be bigger than that. Otherwise it doesn't hang together and it doesn't give you the force of the thing. It's got to be abstracted through your vision, your mind . It's a process of going through detail in order eventually to obtain simplification and cutting out...." - Andrew Wyeth Oil on canvas, in progress oil on etched copper plate, in progress oil on etched copper plate, in progress oil on etched copper plate, in progress Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS.