On the inception of Halley's formal vocabulary of "prisons, cells and conduits" in 1980s New York
This survey revisits the first decade of Peter Halley's (born 1953) career. Assembling over 30 paintings from public and private collections, it presents iconic works alongside previously unseen drawings, sketches and notes. After studying at Yale and in New Orleans in the late 1970s Halley returned to New York in 1980, taking up residence in the East Village. That same year he painted his first images of confinement, redeploying the language of geometric abstraction in response to bureaucratic environments. Adopting nontraditional materials such as Roll-A-Tex--a paint additive that provides a readymade texture--and Day-Glo fluorescent colors, he evoked a pervasive mechanization of human touch with the former and referenced the presence of technology in the postmodern environment with the latter.