Phyllis Sloane began spending summers in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1978; where she became part of the vibrant art community, and attended Indian Market regularly. In a 2003 interview, just before her move to Santa Fe full time, she enthused about the natural light and breath-taking view of the mountains that continued to inspire her art. “It is the first studio where I don’t have to work under artificial light”, she said.
People and the New Mexico landscape became important subjects for Sloane. Through her son-in-law, who owned a trading post in Corrales, NM, Phyllis got to know native artists from Acoma, Cochiti, Santo Domingo and Taos pueblos. She incorporated them, their environs and acquaintances in many paintings and prints.
“Phyllis Sloane…in her silkscreen prints… uses patterns in fabrics, rugs, wallpaper and pillows to lead the eye or to stop it. ‘Decoration,’ art critic and curator Thomas Messer once said, ‘is the artist’s appeal to the sensuous demands of the eye and mind.’ It is also useful to control a picture’s surface. As an intuitive colorist, Sloane pushes hues and tones so that they run the gamut from cool to hot, sweet to sour, puritanical to boisterous…” –– Elizabeth McClelland, 1993
