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Oxymoron

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                                                 Cape Spear (Still Life), oil on canvas, 24" x 36", Steven Rhude You're not one to take a building at face value, that's why you always go around back just to see what's lurking there. So you try to evoke the atmosphere or emotional resonance of it's location by stepping inside the mind of 'the building' and the mind of 'the place', and by extension, yourself the painter. There is nothing really still about the life at Cape Spear. Even though the day is idyllic and nature has called a ceasefire for now, you know when the wind whips, and the gales come with unimaginable force - alone, you would probably cower like a spooked dog. So the title of this work is definitely a bit of an oxymoron. However, you put the day in your pocket and take it home. Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS   
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                                                       Brigus Rock (The Stoic), oil on canvas, 36"  x48", Steven Rhude Being  stoic  is being calm and almost without any emotion. When you're  stoic , you don't show what you're feeling and you also accept whatever is happening. The noun  stoic  is a person who's not very emotional. The adjective  stoic  describes any person, action, or thing that seems emotionless and almost blank. Mr. Spock, from the oldest  Star Trek  show, was a great example of a stoic person: he tried to never show his feelings. Someone yelling, crying, laughing, or glaring is not stoic. Stoic people calmly go with the flow and don't appear to be shook up by much .  The hike to Brigus Light is arduous and not for the faint of heart. In unusually hot weather, and poorly equipped, I seriously underestimated the longevity of the hike ( I was told it was about forty minutes each way). On the way back, I encountered a large rock. Thinking o

Battery Sheds and Battery Wharf

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                                                        Battery Sheds, oil on canvas, 24" x 24", Steven Rhude At the entrance to St. John's harbor, on the slopes of Signal hill, a neighborhood called the 'Battery' is located. Reminiscent of a pell-mell kind of out port, fishermen sheds and houses clung to the slopes like sea birds in all sorts of weather. A google aerial view will now show that gentrification has transformed it since the days when it was home to 'chain rock', a chain that connected it to Fort Amherst, in order to prevent the entry of enemy ships into St. John's harbor. Later it was replaced by an anti-submarine net as warfare was modernized with WW2.                                      Battery Wharf, oil on canvas, 24" x 24", Steven Rhude I still marvel at the Battery, knowing full well it will never be entirely gentrified. It's a time out of mind place where one can easily get lost. Thankfully there will always be some

Two Innocents (Cape Spear Barrens)

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                             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 title comes from a novel by Michael Crummy. He can leave yo

Heart's Desire (Boxes)

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                                                        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 times ain't fair and east is west, for father, son, and daughter." This painting is

Two Flags, Broad Cove

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                                         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 stories and dance.They risk their lives every day. However, for now, you're co

Seduction

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                                          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.