Hold Out, Brier Island
Click on the artwork to view a larger image
This artwork was created in 2024.
The framed dimensions are 41.5 x 62 in.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The psychology of shape is everywhere we go. The word shape goes far beyond just defining the external form of something. It is metaphorical. Who hasn’t contemplated the ‘shape of things to come’. 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 Brier 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 archeology, and others clad with new materials of today, evidence of the modernist shift to a more neutral identity. Living close to fishing communities over the years has lent me an appreciation of the enduring shape of sheds, a subject that has prefigured in my work as far back as 1990.
Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS 2024
