Bidspirit auction | Marloes Hakkers

Marloes Hakkers - ''Anchor'' 2025. A family portrait, in essence. A husband, steady and present. In the mirror, the artist herself. And  between them, their daughter’s doll tied with a true lover’s knot. A quiet symbol of what holds a  life together. This is a painting about the people who make the work possible. Not a grand  gesture, but an intimate one. The kind of gratitude that doesn’t need to announce itself. It simply  arranges itself into a composition and waits to be seen. oil on wood 50/40 cm signed Marloes Hakkers is a figurative painter based in Tel Aviv, originally from the Netherlands. Born into a working-class family, she grew up in a single-mother household where pursuing a career in painting simply didn’t feel like a possibility. Nine years ago she moved to Israel, and it was here, with the support of her husband, that she finally gave herself permission to pursue what she couldn’t ignore. Her entire artistic education took place in Israel: she studied for a year at the Jerusalem Studio School under Yedidya Hershberg and Deborah Sebaoun, continued with courses under Ilya Gefter, and has since been studying with David Nipo. Israel didn’t just become her home; it became the place where she became a painter. Her work moves between portrait, still life, and landscape, though subject matter is secondary to her. Whether it’s a face or a lemon, it always comes down to shape, light, and perception. She paints because she has to. It is, as she puts it, “the one constant in my life that never leaves.” ''I often find myself questioning what realism really is. We like to think we see and paint “reality, ” but every painting is just a frozen moment of perception, a mix of observation and interpretation. My work is rooted in looking closely: at light, at form, at fleeting moments.''