Press: 'Reflections on being misunderstood', CanvasRebel with Philippe Halaburda
Updated: Apr 17
CanvasRebel interview with Philippe Halaburda
September 2025
Nice little milestone: Featuring on CanvasRebel. Philippe Halaburda was featured in CanvasRebel in September 2025, a conversation about psychogeographical mapping, studio practice, and what it means to paint collective emotional states as abstract systems.
It's a conversation about why I map memory and place into abstract systems, how the lines, grids, and colors come togethe, and the messy/joyful parts of keeping a studio practice alive.
What the interview covers
On psychogeography and the work: The interview opens with the core question behind the practice, why map memory and place into abstract systems? Halaburda explains how the paintings function not as depictions of specific locations but as visual records of how environments shape emotion and behavior. Lines, grids, tape, and yarn become the vocabulary of that translation.
On materials and process
The conversation goes into the physical process, how acrylic, color tape, yarn, LEGO bricks, and found objects are layered onto canvas and paper to build what he calls "networks": systems of connection, tension, and spatial logic that mirror the complexity of lived urban experience.
On being misunderstood
The interview takes its title from a recurring theme in Halaburda's practice, the gap between what abstract work communicates and what viewers initially expect.
He speaks directly about the challenge of working in a language that resists easy interpretation, and why that resistance is part of the point.
On studio life
Halaburda discusses the practical and emotional realities of maintaining a studio practice, the rhythm of making, the role of series-based work, and how each body of work feeds into the next.
On recent projects
The interview references his ongoing series from the Newburgh studio, including the psychogeographical mapping work that has developed since his relocation from Brooklyn to the Hudson Valley.
About CanvasRebel
CanvasRebel is an online platform dedicated to stories about artists, creatives, and independent practitioners, focusing on the realities of creative work, process, and practice.
Read the full interview: https://canvasrebel.com/meet-philippe-halaburda
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