Peter Halley

The North American artist Peter Halley (New York, 1953) is one of the greatest representatives of the neo geometric generation. Geometry invades the pictorial space of his works in the form of cells, chimneys and channels and pipes through which flow water, electricity, air, noise and communication. His large-scale compositions are also characterised by an intense luminosity, which the artist expresses by means of fluorescent colours like Day-Glo, and a synthetic plaster like Roll-a-Tex. Underneath the eminently decorative character that Halleys work presents, there lies a critique of post-industrial society. The diagrammatic geometry used alludes to the menacing character of New York urban outlines. Halley conceives New York Òas a desexualised place: of hard edges, devoted to power, to social class, to appearancesÓ. Although his work has a figurative element, Halley feels the need to find a meaning in abstract art. For the artist, his squares have the connotation of cells, of prisons, whose pictorial representation introduces a sensation of calm and confinement.