Facing West

New Paintings by Steven Rhude

I've often pondered what it would be like to have someone take me on a journey around Newfoundland blindfolded, and how I would process the place, its people, the language. And when I returned to the studio, removed the blindfold, and picked up a brush to consider the experience - what would come of it? A camera is to some extent blind, which is why I use it as a tool - it detects only shapes and form, the colour of objects, and it does it in a millisecond. It does not see, and is blind to life, that is the purview of the photographer. Photographers take pictures, and painters make pictures - both are different, but compatible art forms.

The brush and canvas has a mind behind it, an architect, an engineer, a draughtsman, and so the image develops slowly, sometimes over a period of weeks, and the lives that touched the objects, or the places that shaped the people, emerge as if out of a mist - first as vague shapes, and then slowly as the painting advances, the form appears, and eventually the details touch us with tactility. It is the illusion of the third dimension, an ancient exercise in mind and spirit.

-Steven Rhude

Blue Hour: Fish Plant at Rose Blanche Oil on canvas, 32 x 52	Boat on a Cliff Oil on panel, 16 x 24	Boswarlos Oil on canvas, 40 x 90
Container, Anchor Point, Great Northern Peninsula Oil on canvas 32 x 52	Door to the Light, Lobster Cove Oil on panel, 24 x 17	Facing West Oil on panel, 24 x 30
Four Fishermen, Strait of Belle Isle Oil on canvas, 16 x 24	I the Boat, St. Lunaire – Griquet Oil on canvas, 24 x 52	L'Anse aux Meadows Oil on panel, 18 x 24
Migration, Point Riche Light Oil on canvas, 32 x 52	Model with Buoys Oil on canvas, 18" diameter	Moon Tide, Fisherman's House, Port aux Basques Oil on panel, 16 x 24
Poacher's Place Oil on panel, 24 x 24	Sea Side Shanty Oil on canvas, 38 x 41	Shadowland, Fish Plant at Flower's Cove Oil on canvas, 20 x 28
Study for the Ugly Stick Oil on canvas, 20 x 24	Temple Oil on canvas, 40 x 90	The Ugly Stick Oil on canvas, 52 x 33
Wharf Woman Oil on panel, 24 x 24	Wildflowers, L'Anse aux Meadows Oil on canvas, 32 x 52	Woman Descending a Lighthouse Oil on board, 21" diameter
Woman in a Boat Oil on canvas, 40 x 48	Ghost Buoys Oil on panel, 12 x 24