[1] Cyphers grew up in Baltimore and Chesapeake Beach, Maryland and has been inspired by the Miocene fossil deposits, Calvert Cliffs and aquatic life of the Bay since childhood.
[citation needed] Roberta Smith writing in The New York Times, said that Cyphers paints "in an effortless style that corrupts and complicates the staining technique originated by Color Field painters like Helen Frankenthaler with various ideas in the air: notational, pattern-prone motifs, landscape references and allusions to textiles and fabric.
[17] “Animal Spirits” After extensive travel, which included a residence at the Tong Xian Arts Center in Beijing, China, Cyphers completed a series of paintings reflecting the relationship between sentient creatures and geological or natural phenomena.
[20] “Future Byzantium” Cyphers’ interpretation of Byzantine mosaics is reflected in a series of gold-toned paintings she made with quasi-religious light that evokes the aesthetic of the early Italian Renaissance.
[4] Cyphers’ 1987 exhibition, Natural Selection at Ground Zero Gallery featured paintings like Origin of Species, which symbolically visualize Charles Darwin’s naturalist writing and research.
[30] Cyphers’ exhibitions have received numerous reviews from art critics in publications including Artforum, New Criterion,[31] Vogue, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune.
[35] Jonathan Goodman wrote in The Brooklyn Rail that, "Peggy Cyphers has put on a show of startling originality at the Proposition, located nearby the New Museum on the Lower East Side.
The artist, who has more than three decades of experience living and working in New York, calls the exhibition Animal Spirits, in reference to the creatures symbolized by feathers or fur or claws in her compositions.