Exploding Cell (Gray Plume), 1994

For over 25 years New York City's Peter Halley has been exploring the world of geometry and color through his large-scale, artwork. First coming onto the art scene in the mid-80s, Halley quickly garnered critical attention with the interplay of his brightly colored, geometric abstractions he calls "prisons" or "cells", which are often connected by conduits and pipelines. These iconic square and rectangular shapes, and their relationship to each other, reflect society's growing compartmentalization and the reduction of open space, particularly in an urban environment. Peter Halley is most closely associated with the Minimalist Movement due to his nominal use of design elements and more specifically Halley's work is classified as Neo-Geo for his continuous rendering of geometric shapes. Halley works primarily with paint though he is known for printmaking as well. He generally works with Day-Glo acrylic colors, often employing a Roll-a-Tex texture additive, but sometimes utilizes Metallic acrylic to achieve the desired look and feel. In addition to his painting Halley is widely recognized for his critical writing on art and culture. An anthology of essays on post-structuralism, post-modernism, and the digital revolution called, Selected Essays 1981-2001, offers a perspective on art, culture, and history that is distinctly Halley's. From 1996 to 2005 Halley also published index magazine, a periodical focused on in-depth interviews with icons of the art and pop culture worlds. In 2014 the publication released index A to Z: Art, Design, Fashion, Film, and Music in the Indie Era, a book whose goal was to celebrate the indie era featuring many of the celebrities and cultural figures of the time. Today Halley continues to live and work in New York City. (Artist website)