In his paintings and drawings, Henri Haake explores the poetic resonance of everyday life through a process shaped by memory, perception and synthesis. Drawing from personal experience, observation, imagination, and art historical reference, his work unfolds as a dialogue between past and present, the visible and the obscured.

 

Layering, experimentation, and overpainting are essential to his practice, with each surface bearing the imprint of what came before—traces of earlier gestures and submerged forms emerging through the paint. Often, a layered narrative and figures are first constructed, only to be gradually blurred, concealed, and reduced into more ambiguous, often muted or tonal compositions. Stories and forms remain visible, but just beneath the surface, requiring the viewer to revisit the canvas. Through this method, Haake creates a nuanced relationship where absence and presence coexist.

 

Color plays a quiet but powerful role—more than surface, it becomes a way of sensing. Rather than illustrating, it suggests: guiding the mood, softening forms, and shaping how the viewer connects to the image. His use of color creates an atmosphere that resonates gently, evoking a feeling that’s often more sensed than seen—something we recognize emotionally, even if we can’t quite name it. 

 

Haake’s compositions weave between the playful and the philosophical, drawing viewers into a quiet process of looking, sensing, and rediscovery. Through subtle emotion and layered imagery, he creates visual spaces where the familiar becomes symbolic, inviting reflection on life and how we experience the world.

 

 

Henri Haake (b. 1989 in Lübeck) studied at Universität der Künste Berlin, and Hunter College in New York. He lives and works in Berlin and Rome.