Counter-mapping
Abstract canvas art series
2024
xxxxx
Contemporary Abstract Paintings:
Lingering Traces, Mapping What Remains
Abstract Canvas Art Series · 2025
-
Abstract paintings exploring memory, residual marks, and emotional traces
across layered surfaces.
-
Mixed media canvas works in which gestures accumulate, fade, and reappear over time.
+ Modern cartography in psychogeographical mapping
in abstract art
• Painted emotions: quiet tension, control, and emotional containment, self-monitoring, isolation within structure
• Series: 6 original paintings on canvas
• Date: January 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 "counter-mapping"
In my counter-mapping practice, I employ various materials to redefine cartographic conventions.
Acrylic, with its fluidity, captures the intricacies of space, while tape introduces sharp lines challenging traditional boundaries. Yarn weaves through the composition, creating a tactile narrative that binds map elements.
Adding Lego bricks adds a participatory dimension, marking the map with playful yet impactful symbols.
Together, these materials converge to create abstract maps that transcend traditional cartography, embodying a visual language of resistance and reclamation.
This playful approach disrupts established order,
allowing for a nuanced exploration of diverse narratives and perspectives.
Tape introduces a deliberate contrast, creating intersections and disruptions that challenge rigid representations.
With its three-dimensional quality, Yarn adds depth and connectivity, symbolizing the intricate threads of place
and identity.
As unique marks, Lego bricks transform the map into a tangible and interactive experience, engaging viewers
in a tactile exploration of the artwork.
The resulting compositions become dynamic, layered narratives, inviting viewers to question normative power dynamics inherent in mapping and encouraging a reconsideration of spatial understanding.
+ About the theme of counter-mapping
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
+ 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.
4 abstract paintings on canvas
Emotion xxxxxx
Material Acrylic, color tape, yarn, LEGO brick
Medium Stretched canvas 30 x 30 inches
Date 2024
Authentification Signed and title on the back
