Breezeway, Lighthouse at Ferryland

This painting was created in 2026. The wooden, floating frame was built by the artist and it has been painted white. The framed dimensions are 41.75 x 60.75 in.

ARTIST STATEMENT -

I spent a month in Paris touring museums in my miss-spent youth. I also held onto a fascination with churches and cathedrals. The Basilica of the Sacre' - Coeur de Montmartre requires an assent that provides a view over the vast city in all it's splendor. I did it with hundreds of others and watched as the sun set, alone but content this experience would not leave me no matter where art may bring me in the future.

I've often asked myself, why do we climb to the top of places, buildings, and landscape? The German painter Caspar Friedrich gave the exercise a spiritual dimension and for anyone with romantic inclinations his imagery tends to resonate.

Be that as it may I now am climbing to the Ferryland Lighthouse. There aren't hundreds with me, in fact I'm alone with nothing but a few curious foxes, and gulls screeching incoherent screeds at me. The lighthouse is locked and barred temporarily for tourists; what was once a lighthouse keepers residence has been converted to a tea room. However the breezeway is open and I know that suddenly there isn't a lot of difference between a church on a hill and a Lighthouse. Funny how one door closes and another opens.

Steven Rhude, on "Breezeway, Lighthouse at Ferryland", 2026

ARTIST'S 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."

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", 2010's "A Place Called Away - Stephen Rhude, Living and Painting in Nova Scotia" and the 2026 coffee table book "Seeking Avalon".