Gormley came of age artistically during the New York City art boom years of the nineteen-eighties when both neo-expressionism and street art raged as noted in an essay in the catalog for Gormley's exhibition with Scott Borofsky alongside works by Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center......"Though Brian Gormley made few forays into street art per se, his paintings nonetheless reflect its energy and influence. In the mid-1980s, Gormley began showing expressionistic oils with figural motifs, distinguished by wild color and bravura brushwork."
