So Long, Summer

In the six oil pastel works that make up ‘So Long, Summer’, Sydney/Cammeraygal artist Phoebe Stone bids farewell to this enchanting season by depicting a late lunch at the dining table. Envision warm golden light, shareable dishes, clusters of flowers in vintage earthenware, and linen tablecloths draping over weathered wooden tops.

Using her distinctive linear dashes and curlicue lines, Stone leverages the immediacy and vigour of the oil stick. The joy and energy of being among friends finds its equivalent in this medium. 

But if the works in ‘So Long, Summer’ have the air of being completed in a single, unbridled burst of creative energy – it is only because the artist has so skilfully disguised the careful analysis and control behind them. She describes “the beauty and delight to be found in a well balanced coming together of composition, colour, pattern and texture” something which takes time and calibrated focus.