Steven Rhude - Paintings/Drawings

Elgy of Emptiness - "I grant to you a soldier who has no heart. One who will not falter in the darkness. This soldier who has no heart is your twin image. A shell of yourself who you will shed when your song commands it."                        - Igos du Incana (The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask)                              Falling Boat, oil on canvas, 16"x54", Argyle Fine Art  I recall years ago, I think it was in 1991, going to a reading of Alistar Macleod's The Boat  in Canso Nova Scotia. The reading was by Robbie O'Neill, from the Mulgrave Road Theatre Company. It took place in a contemporary prefab fire hall (with a corrugated metal roof ) which the community used for fundraisers, or town meetings among other things. The crowd was sparse. Canso had just lost their fish plant so I think being further depressed by a story lamenting the loss of a son's father to the sea, or the conflict of losing their fishing tradition to the value of

-Chambers unabashed regionalism  "is an issue"  in appreciating the artist.-     Dennis Reid former art historian/ chief curator Art Gallery of Ontario http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/jack-chambers-ontarios-follower-of-the-light/article2249441/ What motivates a historian when the artist in question worked with that old fashioned instrument called a paint brush and local subject matter among other things. You can sense an edge in Reid's obsevation of the late Jack Chambers, [Ontario painter, film maker and regionalist], intended to help assess the nature of his complex and creative equasion. However, with a historian the devil is always in the details. The Globe and Mail article link does not expand on why Chamber's regionalism was an "issue", or why erasing certain particularities struck a chord with millions, as in the prescribed example of Chagall - also a regionalist. But I think it would be easy to surmise. Museums and curators moved towa

He hated winter, Cut off from purpose, his images of spring and the lobster season were a long way off. To far. For someone who lived by the minute, on a surface of liquid lead, winter held no risks. All he could do was sit in silence and tolerate the Wheel of Fortune.                      Steven Rhude,Wooden Buoy on a Road, oil on panel, 18"x24" Roberts Gallery More like Wheel of Torture. He knew his wife loved the show. He also knew it was an escape for her. But still, he hated guessing at vowels. The crowd cheering as the wheel spinned. The thumping sound of the rubber against the pegs. February, and he was already prepared for the new season. The boat, gear, traps, and his art; his only art. The buoy. He would trapse across the snow ladden yard to the shed. Warm and moist from the wood heat, he stared at the piece of wood waiting to be carved ... what was it that Michelangeo said 'there was no concept the stone did not contain'. Somet

The End of Art? Surely a gross generalization. Everything comes to an end, of this we know; but in this case for what or whom?  The artist - the muse - the patron - the institution - society?                                                            Steven Rhude Paintbrush - oil, hog bristle, metal and wood (collection of the artist) Sweeping generalizations such as this have been common in the past. Back in the ninteen seventies the battle cry to put an end to painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design was heard throughout the hallways -  throw away your brushes, painting is dead  still echos to this day. I always tended to laugh at such absurdities. But when Donald Kuspit, Distinguished Professor of Art History and Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, proclaimed the end of art, I considered it with a fresh view. His book The End of Art was published in 2004 and brings to light the notion of post art and the search for a contemporary aesthe