Peter Halley graduated from Yale University and went on to complete an MFA at the University of New Orleans in 1978, remaining in the city until 1980, only to return to New York, where he still lives and works.
Peter Halley’s artistic research moves in the area of geometric abstraction and in his paintings square and rectangular forms, defined by the artist as ‘cells’ or ‘prisons’, are placed in relationship to one another through conduits in square sections representing the increasing geometrization of the social sphere of contemporary electronic technological world and invite us to reflect upon the effects of psychological pressure on the life of the human being. The minimalist geometry recalls the cards of electronic circuits and the colors, intense and brilliant – obtained thanks to the use of Day-Glo paint – allude to the surges of luminous currents produced by technological society.
The vital fluids that course through the conduits and which flow into the cells are the lives of individuals who circulate in social-technological systems, where actions are confined within the fixed limits already established by the system, where apparent liberty is guaranteed, but only within fixed boundaries. Similar to these, the fluids in hydraulic systems that circulate through conduits along predetermined routes, closed from their surfaces, create a more physical pressure, equivalent to the psychological pressure endured by individuals confined within the technological system that governs and controls the actions carried out by human beings inside the system.
Halley’s circuits do not appear to leave space for alternative routes; the conduits that flow into the cells, forming a closed circuit, indicate perhaps that there is no way to escape a constantly growing technology. Or maybe this obsessive manifestation of geometric abstraction, which precludes the form of the circle – symbol of life and vital energy – invites us to reflect upon the necessity of returning to the symbiotic equilibrium of nature and man.
Halley inserts himself culturally into the process of evolution of abstract language that began with Cézanne, by way of Malevich, Mondrian, Albers and American minimalism – and first among everyone, Stella – to enter into dialogue with different languages, such as abstract expressionism.
Peter Halley has exhibited at many of the world’s most important galleries and museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the CAPC Musee d’Art Contemporain in Bordeaux, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the Istituto Butler of American Art.
Halley has written and published essays on art and culture, addressing subjects such as structuralism, post-modernism, and the digital revolution of the 1980s. In 2001, he was the recipient of the College Art Association’s Frank Jewett Mather Award for his critical writing. He has taught at Columbia University, the University of California at Los Angeles and the School of Visual Arts. He served as Director of Graduate Studies in Painting and Printmaking at the Yale University School of Art from 2002 to 2011.

Lives and works in New York.