Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

                             Two Innocents (Cape Spear Barrens), oil on canvas, 36" x 48", Steven Rhude I've always believed it is important to lack the ability to make the distinction between history and the present. One informs the other in painting, so the distinction needs to be suppressed at times. This work started out as an appreciation of the Cape Spear Barrens in all its moodiness. I gestured some figures in with the intent that their ambiguous forms could easily be painted out, and the work would go safely back to a more or less factual account of a hike I took along this melancholic barren place of natural wonder.  To be uneducated and "innocent" of worldly things today is a risky proposition. However, to have acquired knowledge of the natural world as it can be passed down through a generation or two can amount to survival if you originate from an out port in Newfoundland. The painting's tit...

                                                        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.

                                                Boudreau's Shed, Isle Madame, graphite on paper, 18' x 24", Steven Rhude   “Phillip was sort of a strange genius, because he figured out exactly where the holes were in the system, and he used them. He didn't 'fall between the cracks.' He lived in the cracks.” ―  Silver Donald Cameron,  Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes  

                                                  Leaving Long Island, oil on masonite, 23" x 32", Steven Rhude  The road has mixed feelings for you. One being the love of a place you leave behind, the other being the love of place you imagine. The difference to you is self evident. This is the in between world of the picture making process. You wake, you drive, you imagine, you dream, and then you try to etch the experience in your mind. You press on. Two ferry's out are waiting for you to return. Your reconnaissance is nearly over, but it's hard to let go of it. You have some notes, a few drawings and numerous photographs. You will wait a few months, then recollect the place in oil paint on a substrate surface. But it is not the place you recall as reality challenges your perceptions. You dislike a shed colour so you change it. A type of aluminum siding is ...

                                                 Two Houses, oil on panel, private collection, Steven Rhude   “I think of Acadian cussing as a form of bilingual folk poetry. I take a powerless battery from my boat to the local garage, and Claude Poirier shakes his head sadly as he announces his diagnosis: 'C'est tout fucké, ça.' 'He's so goddamn cute!' says an Acadian grandmother adoringly, cradling her baby grandson. 'I could just squeeze the fuckin' shit right outta him.' Perhaps my favourite line of all is a disgusted Acadian's declaration that 'That fuckin' t'ing is fuckin' well fucked.” ―  Silver Donald Cameron,  Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes