Cognitive milestones
Abstract canvas art series
2024
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Contemporary Abstract Paintings:
Lingering Traces, Mapping What Remains
Abstract Canvas Art Series · 2025
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Abstract paintings exploring memory, residual marks, and emotional traces
across layered surfaces.
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Mixed media canvas works in which gestures accumulate, fade, and reappear over time.
+ Problem solving in psychogeographical mapping
in contemporary abstract art
• Painted emotions: quiet tension, control, and emotional containment, self-monitoring, isolation within structure
• Series: 6 original paintings on canvas
• Date: March 2024
• Location: Philippe Halaburda studio paintings, Newburgh, NY, USA
About the Theme of Triadic Tension
This series of contemporary abstract paintings draws on the Triskele, an ancient symbol of three interlocking spirals that represent motion, cycles, and interconnected forces.
Rather than depicting the spiral literally, I translate it into geometric abstract painting through triangular structures.
These forms act as a framework for exploring triadic systems: body, mind, and environment; past, present,
and future; chaos, order, and adaptation.
But the structure is never stable.
Each abstract canvas composition is intentionally displaced, fragmented, and destabilized, interrupted by tangled yarn, ruptured tape, and collisions of color.
The work resists equilibrium.
These modern abstract paintings operate in a state of imbalance, where structure is continuously negotiated rather than resolved.
Transformation appears not as a smooth cycle,
but as a disrupted loop, where repetition carries friction,
deviation, and instability.
About the theme of "cognitive milestones"
As a father of an 18-month-old daughter, I am keenly aware of the significance
of cognitive milestones in her development.
These milestones serve as guideposts, allowing me to understand how
she learns and grows.
Mental development is particularly crucial at this stage, encompassing many skills such as thinking, learning, exploring, and problem-solving.
These abilities shape her understanding of the world and lay the foundation
for her language and social skills.
I try to translate the complexity of cognitive development onto canvas through
a minimal composition adorned with a palette of pink colors.
Using color tapes, yarn, and LEGO bricks, I symbolize each component
of this intricate process.
The soft hues of pink evoke a sense of innocence and curiosity, reflecting
my daughter's tender age as she navigates her cognitive journey.
Each element on the canvas represents a facet of cognitive development,
from the vibrant color tapes denoting the expansive realm of learning
to the intricate yarn strands symbolizing the interconnectedness
of various mental skills.
The LEGO bricks serve as tangible markers of problem-solving and exploration, inviting viewers to contemplate the multifaceted nature
of cognitive growth.
Through this abstract representation, I seek to capture the essence of my daughter's cognitive milestones and celebrate the wonder of her evolving mind.
+ Materials & process
Materials operate as active elements within the composition.
Color tape establishes boundaries and directional shifts, yarn traces fragile connections across the surface, and wood blocks introduce weight, interruption, and architectural resistance.
Together, these materials disrupt the painted field, allowing the canvas to behave like a lived environment, layered, negotiated, and in constant motion.
6 abstract paintings on canvas
Emotion xxxxxx
Material Acrylic, color tape, yarn, LEGO brick, found objects
Medium Stretched canvas 30 x 30 inches
Date 2024
Authentification Signed and title on the back
+ About the theme of
cognitive milestones
Plus Minus Playground is a series where I channel emotional contradictions, tension, anticipation, and playfulness through a language of abstract geometry, thread, and symbolic marks.
My process begins with mapping intuitive gestures onto a raw canvas: taped lines, yarn grids, LEGO bricks, and found plastic parts are arranged like fragments of a scrambled code or echoes of urban circuitry.
Each "+" and "–" becomes a sign of presence and absence, a negotiation between control and disorder.
I intentionally build onto the back of each canvas, embedding small objects that distort the surface and fracture its expected flatness.
This subtle intervention adds dimensionality, pushing the work towardsculptural terrain, inviting the viewer to question what lies beneath,not just what is seen
