PHYLLIS FLOYD IN NEW YORK — THE CAMBRIDGE CRITIQUE

Fabulous Phyllis Floyd has featured in the Cambridge Critique before. And a small sample of her work is on show in Murray Edward’s college Cambridge . But here’s a chance to visit her New York mega-show . It only has a week to run, works selling well, so still time to collect your ticks and go in person. Next best is have a look at a sample of her extraordinary work right here.

Eve Waldron the Cambridge- based designer and artist - check out her enchanting shop off Castle Hill, - painter mother Phyllis, is amazingly 92 years old and still makes art in her Manhattan loft. Not just her own lovely works, but she spreads the word on fellow artists to promote the wonderful world of affordable original wall -ready creativity. It’s one thing to pilgrimage to a National Gallery to see a Caravaggio and the last moments of St. Ursula -but art is everywhere and needs to spread.

Alongside the rectangular austerity of Phyllis’ New York urban scape, run pictures in parallel - people in parks of such delicate softness and sensuality,( see above ) they sharpen the precision of her other work. For stilll life is - still life- as the rather oblique title of a recent Murray Edward’s College show pointed out, and Phyllis Floyd is a mistress of that art. Interestingly a woman’s métier almost exclusively in the past, as historically only men were allowed to paint nudes and women discouraged from outdoor activities on their own - so that’s landscape out for a start. They were left with what was ranked officially in art circles, ‘the third category’ of what appeared to the authorities to be a safe form of art - Still Life.

Phyllis’ still lifes are delightful. The kind of art we all want to own, that lives alongside us, either in oils or water colours. Above, the Pitcher and Bags of 2010 are and Two Jars are part of an entire oeuvre of its own, the rendition of household objects so as to celebrate their exceptional shapes and promote the potential of the quotidien, even throwaway ,features of our life.

Phyllis Floyd is a liberated American woman, not confined to the interior, the kitchens and the living rooms.

So between the austere semi-abstract rectangular towers in sobre and sombre mushroom hues, lies the great outdoors full of life, conversation, interaction, and colour, young people as they ever were, as they chat on the grass and cluster in the fair open air.

Whichever route you take, here is an artist who sings to us and has so much to say in those songs. Long may she paint on.