A mystery is a fact, essentially an inexplicable fact. An attractive thing about which to speculate, and sometimes downright challenging to those aiming for answers. Lieve Hakkers is fond of mystery as a given, and her work could be regarded as an ode to the visual power of the mysterious and the opaque, the power of questions instead of answers. Her work is first and foremost an appeal to the viewer’s imagination. Ambiguous forms, stains, lines and colors in tempera, oil paint or ink fluctuate between figuration and abstraction. They suggest a presence, but that presence is never defined as more than a play of appearance and disappearance. In her paintings Hakkers presents a world which is itself the image. And it is up to the observer to excavate the images in order to find out what rules and laws apply in her painted and drawn world.

Rising up from the bottom of the image is the head of a toxic-green frog as his eyes peer over the edge of the painting. Standing in the background are amorphous figures that look like ghosts. The group is literally in the grip of long tentacles belonging to a ‘creature’ reminiscent of an octopus. Whirling above the scene is a spiral-shaped cloud in shades of light-green and yellow. Between the foreground and the background, in the center of the image, a round construction on legs resembles the metal supports that protect trees from deer and rodents.

 Character Assassination is the title of the ‘frog work’ by Lieve Hakkers which appears in her solo exhibition Third Opinion. With the title of the work the artist seems to be lifting the veil for us. Character assassination is the deliberate damaging of someone’s reputation, a tactic known to be used especially in politics, at the expense of a rival, as a means to manipulate the public’s perception. The frog that can rotate its eyes 360 degrees, and thus look at the surrounding world from every angle, seems to be portrayed here as the well-known symbol of solidarity and connection. But who or what protects the frog? Who or what is, in fact, the underlying threat? The frog provides no answer but looks the other way, and the image dissolves into color and light.

In the drawings and paintings of Hakkers, the physical is an element which often comprises a point of departure. Here she draws on her own experience, but also from literature, the online world, history or the work of other artists. Social topics (such as the idea of self-determination – also where it relates to physical autonomy – social expectations, and living with existing ecosystems) are linked with the existential fluidity of the physical that does not lend itself to codes and forms. The matter of how we deal with the body takes on meaning in the work of Hakkers via a process of actions in and with the material. In her recent paintings and drawings, the presence or frequently the absence of light is striking. Scenes play out in nocturnal darkness, or in a world that has the unfathomable quality of the deep sea. Memories, thoughts and associations make up an undercurrent from which the artist can draw freely. Appearing, for example, as accomplices of autonomy, thoughtfulness and cosiness in one of her paintings, Support Mittens, 2026, are kitchen gloves from her own kitchen. Like the frog, Hakkers can let her eye rotate and offer a new perspective on the world: Third Opinion is a plea for ambivalence, for the comfort of life with darkness, a plea for mystery.

translation: Beth O’Brien