Bidspirit auction | Marloes Hakkers

Marloes Hakkers - ”Self-Portrait in Charcoal” 2026. Every artist eventually paints themselves, if nothing else, the model is always available. But there's more to it than convenience. A self-portrait is a rare kind of looking: slow enough, and honest enough, that things you hadn't noticed before start to surface. Behind her, a window sits in shadow, another world, visibly there, but no part of this conversation. The looking stays inward. Framed charcoal on paper 58/47 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.''