与他让人熟知的“夜景”系列不一样，康海涛是在一片虚无中建构起展览中的这些绘画的，他既不面对一个既定的视觉客体，如夜晚的建筑与树丛、光线或阴影，也不面对一种心理的经验，如恍惚、安宁或抑郁。甚至他也不面对那些画面上最终出现的若有若无的意象——在之前的某个阶段，康海涛经常一开始就设定好画面中的意象，而在他现在的这些画中，作为画家的他最初只是面对着一片空白。
画家眼前的虚无其实就是他面对的白纸或空画布，当这一小片空白不再与任何对象或内容有着先定关系的时候，绘画就从名词变成了动词，绘画被还原成了一个无预设目标的行动。实际上，康海涛就是从随意的涂抹开始这些作品的，然后对那些最初涂抹带来的混饨存在做出判断，继续下一步的工作。之后的工作可以用Ge-stell来形容。
Ge-stell是海德格尔用来揭示现代技术本质的一个术语。他认为技术乃至现代世界的本质上源于一种表象性思维，世界分成了主客体，人对存在者产生了工具性的要求，存在者被摆置出来，成为了对象，也被分门别类集中起来，形成了类属。在抽象的意义上，Ge-stell即“集置”，但Ge-stell这个词是海德格尔对德语Gestell一词的改造，Gestell的含义是支架、框架或底座，他增加了一个连接符使原来名词获得了动作感，因此Ge-stell也经常被翻译为“座架”、“构架”。
在康海涛这里，Ge-stell首先是一种形象的暗示，他最近的很多绘画中都出现了类似于支架或框架的形象；其次，Ge-stell也是一种绘画方式，他反复地、试探性地生成出长条状的笔触，带来空间的分割与汇聚；最后，Ge-stell更是对何为绘画的一种理解，康海涛的这些绘画不是对任何既定对象的描绘，而是对未知画面的不断构设，画面呈现的过程，即绘画方法本身已成为了绘画的内容。
在今天，人们习惯性地把康海涛的这些作品归入“抽象”，这里要提醒的是“抽象”作为一种风格与“抽象”作为一种主义是不同的，前者只是一种印象式的艺术分类，后者则是一种严格的艺术史叙事。而在中国，艺术史叙事意义上的抽象主义是不存在的，虽然这不妨碍人们用“抽象”这个概念来理解很多艺术家的作品，比如康海涛的这些绘画。
但更进一步地讨论，实际上，康海涛的这些“抽象”作品是从他的写实性绘画中发展出来的，他从写实题材中剥离出了风格与方法，也压缩了色彩与形式，但又保留了他“夜景”系列中的诸多因素，比如空间感、透光感，以及深色背景。尤其是在一些卡纸上的作品中，颜料材质薄涂带来的透明感与“夜景”系列中的空气透光感呈现着一种内部的默契。值得一提的是，在康海涛的日常工作中，“夜景”系列与“抽象”系列是同时进行的，两者互为补充、互相契合，达成着一种存在的完满。
这些作品中的线条经常既是纯粹的形式，也是造型的笔触，而不同线条之间也既构成着平面上的覆盖、叠加性的空间关系，也不时地出现视觉错觉意义上空间深度关系，甚至线条与线条也会形成造型明暗关系。正是在这个意义上，可以说康海涛是不同于艺术史叙事中的“抽象主义”的，因为他并不在乎抽象主义所包含的平面性、非形象性等一系列的实在主义诉求。甚至，康海涛经常会有意使绘画停留在前意象的状态，并通过作品标题的文学性来暗示其图像的意象性。
在这些意义上，康海涛的绘画就不仅仅是画面上的部分了，它们还包含着一种世界观，一种对存在的理解。用海德格尔的话说，艺术的真理性在今天可能比科学乃至哲学都要重要，因为只有艺术才能够抵御现代性分化与工具化所带来的经验日趋贫乏。对康海涛的作品来说，或许可以用一个更贴切的词语去替代“真理性”这样的说法，即灵性。
Ge-stell Unlike his famed “night scenes” series, Kang Haitao composed his paintings for this exhibit from a vast void. He was neither confronted by fixed visual objects, such as buildings or clumps of trees, or light and shadows in the dark, nor deal with some kind of psychological experience, such as confusion, quietude, or melancholy. He is not even bothered by the obscure images in his finished composition – during a certain earlier phase, Kang Haitao often made up his mind about what the final image would be on the canvas as he began to paint. However, in these paintings, Kang was confronted by an infinite emptiness at the very beginning of his act of creating. The void facing the painter is none other than the blank paper or canvas. When this small blank space lacks a pre-existing relationship with any object or context, “painting” is transformed from a noun to a verb; it is restored to an aimless act. In truth, Kang Haitao started working on these paintings in a casual fashion, then he made his judgment on the chaotic composition arising from his initial impulse before deciding on his next move. Afterwards, subsequent steps of the creative process may be described as Ge-stell. Ge-stell is a term used by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger to describe what lies behind or beneath the essence of modern technology. He perceived the essence of technology and the modern world as originating from representative thinking, wherein the world is divided into subject and object. Humans have an instrumental need towards Beings, and Beings become an object which can be assembled and divided into categories. Ge-stell is a German word that was reinvented from Gestell by Heidegger. Gestell literally refers to “rack” or “framework”, and by adding a hyphen between Ge and stell, it was given an active role. For Heidegger, Ge-stell is a challenging, or performative "gathering together", for the purpose of revealing or presentation. For Kang Haitao, Ge-stell is, first of all, the implication of image. Many of his recent paintings reveal images similar to rack or framework. Secondly, Ge-stell is a painting style for Kang. He repeatedly experimented with long bars to either divide or concentrate space. Lastly, Ge-stell is Kang’s definition towards painting. Kang Haitao’s paintings are not descriptions of any existing objects but a continual development of an unknown composition. The process of creating a composition, or his manner of painting, has become the context of his creative work. Today, people customarily regard Kang Haitao’s Ge-stell works as “abstract” painting. Nevertheless, it is worthy of note that there is a difference between “‘abstract’ as a style” and “‘abstract’ as an ‘-ism’”. The former is an art category in people’s mind, while the latter is a scrupulous narrative of art history. In China, abstract-ism does not occur in the narrative of art history, but this aspect does not prevent people from using an “abstract” concept when trying to interpret the works of various artists, i.e. Kang Haitao’s Ge-stell paintings. Close observation reveals that Kang Haitao’s “abstract” works have in fact evolved from his realistic paintings. He has separated the elements of style and method from realistic objects, compressed colors and forms, yet at the same time, retained other features in his “night scenes” series, i.e. the sense of space and translucency, as well as the dark background. This distinctive trait is especially apparent in his work done on cardboard. The sense of translucency created by a thin layer of paints and the atmospheric translucency of the “night scenes” series are identical, demonstrating an unspoken harmony. What is more, Kang Haitao, in the course of his workday, will work on both his “night scenes” series and “abstract” series. They compliment and accord with one another, jointly accomplishing a sense of satisfaction with existence. The contours of these works are often both simple lines as well as brushwork style. They cover the surface of the work and overlap to form a spacial correlation. From time to time, they create a sense of depth due to visual illusion. Moreover, his contours are arranged so as to produce a contrast between light and darkness. In this manner, Kang Haitao’s works are very different from the “abstract-ism”, as found in the art history narrative, because he does not care to include the planarity and nonfigurative traits favored by abstract art. Often, Kang Haitao even goes so far as to intentionally halt the painting composition in a pre-imagery state, and employ a literary title as a means to imply the image of his painting. From this viewpoint, the significance of Kang Haitao’s painting is not limited to the composition itself. It embodies a kind of world view and Kang’s existential perception. It is just as Heidegger suggested: the reality of art is more important than modern science or philosophy, because art is the only weapon to withstand the paucity of daily experience resulting from the polarization and mechanization of modern times. Perhaps, for Kang Haitao’s works, the word “reality” may be substituted by a more appropriate term: “spirituality”.