Enduring Shapes by Steven Rhude

Artist Statement

An artist would be lost without an appreciation of the use of shape - not only in composing a painting, but in understanding observed reality. Recently I made a trip to Briar Island to isolate myself among fishing structures that inherently display commanding shapes that have endured. The minimal shape of a shed interceding with the exuberance of a once great fishing age, brings out our understanding of utilitarian beauty - architecture beautifully realized. I encountered long rectangular shapes projected over water, interacting squares and diagonals configured together to make up a community of fishermen, shapes that are both abstract and figurative. Shapes lingering with the patina of the past taking me into the world of industrial archaeology, and others clad with new materials of today, evidence of the modernist shift to a more neutral identity.

On trips to the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, I've continued to mine more evidence of shape endurance. The lingering, figurative shape of the wooden buoy, the tarped lifeboat, and the ever-present dory. Living close to fishing communities over the years has lent me an appreciation of the shape of place underscored by these industrial objects, a subject that has prefigured in my work as far back as 1990.

- Steven Rhude, 2024

stevenrhudefineart.com

Biography

Steven Rhude was born in Rouyn Noranda, Quebec in 1959. His father was a Royal Canadian Air Force Pilot and traveled extensively throughout Canada before settling his family in Scarborough, Ontario. In Scarborough, Steven was raised, educated and studied civil engineering at Centennial College. After one year he switched to the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto where he studied fine arts and graduated in 1983 with honors in drawing and painting.

It was at OCAD that Steven was introduced to the pantheon of draughtsmen from Ingres to American modernists like de Kooning. Teachers such as Fred Hagen, John Gould and John Newman instilled in Steven the relevance of drawing as a complete form of expression in itself. Steven also attended the college's off campus program in Florence, Italy for one year which included an intensive study of the Italian and Northern European renaissance. This year of study was made possible by receiving the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation award.

Afterwards, he met Simone Labuschagne and they were married in 1986. Over a period of three years Steven worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario as a technician installing exhibitions, an experience he still recalls with appreciation due to first hand contact with master works of all kinds.

In 1990, Steven began to devote himself to drawing and painting full time. He and his wife moved to Fox Island Main, Guysborough, County, Nova Scotia. It was there, in relative isolation, that Rhude developed the realistic and colorful style he is known for today. Art critic Elissa Barnard stated that in his work “Rhude has grappled with and further developed his subject matter, maintaining his engaging style but deepening his ideas and calling on the viewer to put more thought into the work and the plight of coastal communities in Atlantic Canada."

Recently Rhude has been part of two major provincial shows at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia highlighting contemporary artists: “Capture, 2014”, a Survey of Realism, and in 2016, “Terroir”, a survey of contemporary Nova Scotian Art. His work can be found in numerous private, public and corporate collections around the world. Steven's work has been reproduced in various publications, including on the cover and inside the 2009 book "from Land and Sea - Nova Scotia's Contemporary Landscape Artists" and the 2010 coffee table book "A Place Called Away - Stephen Rhude, Living and Painting in Nova Scotia."

Terroir Q&A Series: Steven Rhude