As time drifts, so do I

Phoebe Stone is a Sydney/Cammeraygal-based artist working primarily in oil pastel on board, a medium whose softness and immediacy suit the urgency of her looking. Rather than being blended smooth, the pastel remains present as a living surface: linear dashes, curls and small accumulations of colour build an image that vibrates. Foliage is rendered as breathing texture; shadows murmur; the edge of a chair hums with life. The joy and energy of being among friends and familiar rooms finds its formal equivalent in the vigour of these marks.

This new collection moves between interiors and gardens, tables and thresholds. We encounter wicker chairs and striped runners, glasses and bottles catching faint light,
and the slow architecture of greenery enclosing figures in shade. In one work, a table waits beneath a canopy of leaves; in another, a figure is glimpsed through a window, as if by chance. Elsewhere, friends lean toward one another outdoors, half absorbed into the dappled pattern that surrounds them. The distinction between figure and ground softens; people are held within their environments rather than set apart from them.