Peter Halley presents a new exhibition at Almeida & Dale Fradique. The American Connection, the American artist’s first exhibition in Brazil in five years, features a group of recent paintings with his iconic fluorescent colors and cell-like structures that expand the picture plane.

Halley emerged as one of the leading figures of post-conceptualism in the 1980s and became widely recognized for his fluorescent geometric paintings that emphasize color and systems. His works employ the language of geometric abstraction to explore the organization of social space in the digital era.

“The works in the exhibition The American Connection take on the metaphorical representation of electronic devices connected by conductors. They are cells that evoke neuronal systems or computer terminals, but they could also be prison cells, as suggested by the titles of some recent paintings presented here,” writes Antonio Gonçalves Filho, cultural director of Almeida & Dale.

With titles such as Cell and Prison, the paintings reflect on the structures of social organization in an artistic production that aligns with structuralist thought and with French philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, and Jean‑François Lyotard. Likewise, the forms in his work seem to respond to the isolation and individualization of the present moment. As Gonçalves Filho concludes, “the painter shows how the seduction of fluorescence and the anti-naturalism of the lights of computers and cell phones end up imprisoning the contemporary individual.”