Author Description

Peter Halley (born 1953) is well known for his brightly colored, gridded, geometric abstractions which he calls "prisons" and "cells." Composed of rectangular shapes and vertical bars, Halley's works evoke a range of geometric network models, from the urban grid to high-rise apartment buildings to electromagnetic conduits. In an introduction to this publication, which reproduces works created since 2000, Jo Melvin writes: "In Peter Halley's paintings colors clash and conjoin to create a dizzying sensation. At times the optical effect created by the Day-Glo's luminosity is so jarring that the paintings almost hurt the eye. He celebrates effects such as the plethora of color in neon signs, internet surfing, and our image-saturated media world. The three-dimensional quality of Halley's work asserts the object status of the paintings in a way that photographic reproduction simply cannot represent."