Bidspirit auction | Marloes Hakkers

Marloes Hakkers - ''Sailor's Omen'' 2026. An old rhyme says a red sky can mean two things: delight or warning, depending only on whether you're looking at it in the evening or the morning. This painting sits in that same uncertain light. The dress is the artist's own wedding dress. It hangs empty, caught somewhere between memory and threat, unsure which direction the sky is facing. Below it, a handful of dried white roses. Already past what they were, not yet anything else. oil on canvas 120/80 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.''