Gunner's Cove (Life Line)

This painting was created in 2026. The floating wooden frame was built by the artist and it has been painted white. The framed dimensions are 24 x 34.75 in.

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".

ARTIST STATEMENT:

When I moved to Nova Scotia in 1990, I vowed to avoid boats as subject matter. I did the same thing when the Harry Potter series came out ; eschew the popular, explore the enigmatic... but for what? And really - why?

However, individual biases dropped as reason prevailed, and conversely dreams intervened as reason devolved. We're all conscious of the cycle of life, and in it art always produces the requisite metaphor whether one makes pictures, or is provoked to ponder them. The boat is the alpha and omega of the Maritimes, and if one lives here long enough, it is accepted as a the big metaphor for the life cycle, so willingly or unwillingly, it becomes an index for meaning, a modus operandi for the painter at large.

Steven Rhude, 2026

"A boat is unique in that it is built like a person. It has a skeletal structure that lasts long after the covering disintegrates. However, were one to see a boat deteriorating on a beach one might deduce that the ribs (rames) of that boat will no doubt decay, long before similar ribs are continually created in the sand by timeless waves and particulate matter, a sculpted relief that intentionally arranges and rearranges our related metaphysical patterns for eventual analogy and tangible metaphor." - Steven Rhude