Black Cell with Underground Sequence, combines large-scale black, green and blue rectangular panels to create an iconic image
of an oversized black cell hovering over two rectangular fluorescent panels. The black cell is painted with light-absorbing black Roll-a-Tex on canvas, creating a surface often associated with the walls and ceilings of suburban houses. The two fluorescent underground blue and green panels under the central black cell suggest the glowing light of an LED sign.


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Influenced by artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Josef Albers, Barnett Newman the American artist Peter Halley
is well-known for his geometrical paintings transforming the paradigmatic square of abstract art into
referential icons that he labelled “prisons”, “conduits” and “cells”, referring to urban space especially those
of prisons and clinics, which is reminiscent of the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s theory on the
panopticon and the development of modern prison. He has held solo exhibitions at the Lever House Art
Collection, New York, (2018) the Schrin Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2016), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art,
California (2015) and the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Saint-Étienne, France (2014). Today,
Halley’s works is included in numerous public collections, like the Tate Modern, London, England, the Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam, Holland, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, the Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York, USA, the Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea, the CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain,
Bordeaux, France.