Despite how they may appear, Peter Halley does not entitle his works as abstract art, nor does he define himself as an abstract artist. Forms such as windows, cells, and urban areas are simply highlighted with lines and squares. The recursive forms and images of the vertical stripes and rectangles in his pieces symbolize everyday surroundings represented by digitized modern network system.
Born and raised in New York City, Peter Halley studied art history at Yale University and practical art technique at the University of New Orleans. Following his first solo show in 1978, he managed to enter into the limelight with his exhibition at the Modern Museum of Art (MoMA) in New York. Afterwards, his works were exhibited in Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Seoul. His art is favorably commented on in the New York art scene as abstract work that criticizes abstraction and that acts as a parody of modernist formalism and abstractionism.