He gained notoriety in the early 1980s for his color series Attitudes[1] incorporating detail-free, graphic figures in flat two-dimensional fields, first exhibited in 1980 at the Space Gallery[2] of Pete Turner, Ernst Haas, Jay Maisel in New York.

Since 2017, Macleay's work has been increasingly dedicated to exploring interactive, non-linear storytelling, employing photography, video and audio.

The first phase of his transmedia project Encounters in the Right and Left Hemispheres was completed in December 2019: an interactive book of the same named published in February 2020.

The second phase, an interactive web platform, was completed and available for online exploration in January 2021: https://encounters-right-left-hemispheres.online[32] In 2018, his cultural action company CREATIVE PROCESS, founded in 2011,[33] began publishing books in the field of new media.

To date, five books have been published including two devoted to MacLeay's work: Quadrichromie 1978–1988 (2018) and Encounters in the Right and Left Hemispheres (2020).