Executed in 1984, this untitled work exemplifies Peter Halley's distinctive post-minimalist geometric style and love for visually arresting colors. Burning red Roll-a-Tex paint covers the entire surface, a textured paint often employed by Halley in many of his other paintings. The dynamic interaction of a single color with the viewer's perception of surface and space speaks to the socio-politically aware artistic practice Halley worked to achieve in much of his work.

Known for his vividly colored works of geometric abstraction which questioned ideals of minimalism, contemporary artist Peter Halley (B. 1953) is considered a leading practitioner of the Neo Geo movement centered around the East Village in New York during the mid-1980's. With his work, Halley explores the relationship between what he refers to as "prisons" and "cells", which are inhabited social spaces seen throughout the world that have been transformed into compartmentalized geometric forms. Halley received his BA from Yale University and his MFA from the University of New Orleans, and since 1980 has resided in New York. The artist has held numerous exhibitions the world over with shows at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, NL), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY), and Museum of Contemporary Art (Kanazawa, JP), among others.