About the work

‘Yves, where are we when we draw?’ John Berger asks his son in a dialogue called ‘Lobster and Three Fishes’, included in the excellent Berger on Drawing. He clarifies that his question is not literal but spiritual, and offers that the act of drawing is ‘about becoming rather than being.’ Drawing, then, both the act and the object, is a liminal space through which one passes, arriving changed on the other side.

Within a span of five months in 2021, my wife had emergency spinal surgery that left her partially paralyzed, we suffered a miscarriage of the baby she was carrying, and my father died. These successive upheavals to the structure of my life threw me into my own, profoundly disrupted, liminal space. I have yet to exit it.

A Provision Realized comes at the approach of another threshold; my wife and I are expecting another child toward the end of spring. This drawing is set between the end of one state of being and beginning of another – a sort of standing stone or marker. And, paused at this threshold, making this drawing, I am trying to locate myself. Trying to find out where I am, and to anticipate what is ahead.

In the work, there is a hope to establish or to discover a stability and security that is strong, even if it is slight. The title suggests that the security is already in place, even if the apprehension of it is slow to come.

Four has long been a stabilizing number – orderly, simple, and whole, and one we use to orient ourselves in the world in a myriad of different ways.

The leaves are from an elm tree in Bermondsey. Elm trees have a history of being a symbol of healing, resurrection and new life. Three of the leaves were the subject of a drawing of mine from 2017, Provision, and it feels to me that these two drawings are at either ends of a long tether that spans these seven years.

Date and country of birth

1979, US

About the artist

Born 1979 Pennsylvania, Adrian Haak Jr. lives and works in London. Graduated from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; and Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts, London.

Haak makes silverpoint drawings of found natural objects such as leaves or stones. The objects are often collected as personal markers or mementoes of a particular place or time. In addition to this personal, subjective significance, he researchs the archetypal and historical significance these items may bear. This often provides surprising insights into them, enriching and expanding their meaning. In the image, Haak frequently couples them with formal or iconic geometric elements as he reaches for a way to explore how ontological concerns may be embodied though these everyday objects.

His works are held in public and public collections in the United States, United Kingdom, Southeast Asia, and Europe.

Selected solo exhibitions include Adrian Haak – Silverpoint Drawings, Bethlehem, Philadelphia (2009); and Adrian Haak – Drawings, Lebanon Valley Council of the Arts, Lebanon, Philadelphia (2008). Selected group exhibitions include London Ultra, OXO Bargehouse, London (2018); Stables Gallery End of Year Group Show, Stables-in-Exile, London (2018); Tannery Group Show, Tannery Project Space, London (2017); Open Exhibition, More Riverside, London (2014); In Search of the Intentist, The Rag Factory, London (2011); Battle of Ideas, Royal College of Art, London (2011); 38th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Lebanon Valley College, Annville (2009); and 31st Annual Berks Art Alliance Juried Art Exhibition, GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, Reading, Philadelphia (2008).

Haak's work was featured in The Power of Drawing, in PoetsandArtist Magazine Issue 59 (2014); and The Search for Intentist Art (2011).