Peter Halasz “Rapture & Reverie”

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Peter Halasz, Narcissus Amongst the Fireflies II, 2024, oil on panel, 37 x 44.5 inches

Peter Halasz
Rapture & Reverie
March 21 to April 27, 2024

NANCY TOOMEY FINE ART
1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco

Nancy Toomey Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by Peter Halasz titled Rapture & Reverie on view from March 21 to April 27, 2024. The gallery is located inside San Francisco’s Minnesota Street Project, 1275 Minnesota Street. Gallery hours are Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, 12pm to 4pm, and by appointment–please contact nancy@nancytoomeyfineart.com or 415-307-9038.

The public is invited to meet artist Peter Halasz, in town from San Diego, at the gallery on Saturday, April 6, from 4pm to 6pm.

Peter Halasz, The Age of Myth II, 2024, oil on panel, 25 x 30 inches

“I looked for you at sunset but you weren’t there. Nobody was. Not like it used to be–everyone lounging on the old wood benches, draped from street signs and scattered over the rocks, wild in the shorebreak… Making a plan for the night as the sun fell in the sea, left the sky smouldering… Seems like no one’s around anymore. Heard you finally cashed it in, riding the Esco line some bright Sunday. Just faded out, wrapped in your corduroy and safety pins. Wonder how many loops it took before somebody noticed you weren’t actually there… Remember that tune you used to hum? What was that song? Something about method airs off janky plywood jump ramps, g-turns in the rain, fastplants in the keyhole… It was a strange melody, half written and hard to make out- like tuning into alien transmissions, gaunt from a million light years traversing the abyss. Attenuated, wavering just at the edge of audible. Meandering, silent, then suddenly PRESENT, clarion in dulcet tones–an incandescent ascendence… If I tilted my head just right and leaned in at the correct time I’d catch a phrase or two. Oh, what were the words? What were the words again? Hard to say, really. I’ll see you again though, of that I’m sure…”

-Peter Halasz, March 2024

Peter Halasz, Grey Eyed, 2019, oil on panel, 47.5 x 57.5 inches

As the exhibition title Rapture & Reverie suggests, Southern California artist Peter Halasz addresses highly evocative subjects such as nocturnal landscapes, atmospheric realms, moody still lifes, and sensual, haunting figures that exist solely within their own realm. Halasz slowly layers multitudes of thin wet-on-wet oil paint, allowing the imagery to gradually coalesce and become legible. These psychologically charged tableaus rendered in seductive tones of ochre, petal pink, and foggy gray, set a mood where the familiar world ends and a less finite one begins. Drawing from the diverse traditions of Baroque painting, 19th century French Realism, and California Light and Space, Halasz offers contemporary insight into seemingly traditional modes of representation.

Peter Halasz, Fantasia, 2024, oil on panel, 25.5 x 30.5 inches

Peter Halasz, photo by Lile Kvantaliani

Artist Peter Halasz hails from San Diego, California, where he currently lives and works, and his paintings have been exhibited nationally at the Grand Rapids Museum of Art as well as galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, La Jolla and New York. Halasz’s work is part of the permanent collection of the Crocker Museum in Sacramento and has been reviewed in publications such as Art Papers, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Art Scene, The Surfer’s Journal, LA Fashion Mag, American Art Collector, and Riviera Magazine.

Rapture & Reverie is Peter Halasz’s second solo exhibition at Nancy Toomey Fine Art.