Every picture tells—no, needs a story. The eleven mostly black-and-white photographs (and a zine-like publication assembled from photocopies) that made up “Drift,” Barry Stone’s solo exhibition here, are striking enough at first sight—but they’re also mysterious, both individually and as an ensemble. Water is a recurring element: as the backdrop for the hands holding the vulnerable-looking little sea creature in Hermit Crab, Bailey Island, Maine, 2018, or the substance on which a couple of kids back-float in Floating, Birmingham, Alabama, 2018. In Rainbowed Seaweed, Bailey Island, Maine, 2017–20, we see no figurative presence, just the strangely scrambled-looking wave patterns with subtle resonances of color here and there. Water can even be conspicuous by its absence: Why, for instance, in Floating on the Grass, Bailey Island, Maine, 2018, is that girl ensconced in an inflatable lounger not in a pool but on a wide expanse of lawn? But then some of the works depart from this theme, as does Road Marks, US I-59 Outside Fort Payne, Alabama, 2018, which images skid tracks going off into the distance and crossing the broken white line of the highway. Read More