Structures of the Ephemeral

Who hasn’t experienced this moment: You’re standing in a secluded spot in nature, alone. Suddenly, you perceive the sounds differently—the wind, the birdsong—and you notice inconspicuous details on leaves, stones, and tree trunks with absolute clarity. Artist Marketa Hopkins focuses on these simple yet striking moments in which the beauty of nature reveals itself. She permanently captures new perspectives on natural environments on canvas; perceptions of time and light shape the colors and forms of her paintings. Hopkins’ paintings, rendered in dark colors, explore the elegance and strength of nature; with bright colors, she depicts its warming and energizing effect. Her body of work is divided into four interconnected groups: Hour, Lemon, Noir, and Tribute to Nature.

It Is a Matter of Perspective from the Noir collection, for example, is based on memories of summer nights: the star-studded sky and details of nature that emerge from the darkness only when viewed from certain angles in the moonlight. Hopkins uses his personal experiences as a basis for reflections on life that go beyond purely visual impressions. Squeeze It from the Lemon series serves as a symbol of revitalizing freshness and resilience. The way nature manages to bring forth new life time and again, often in the most unexpected ways, can inspire a more optimistic outlook on one’s own life story.

Hopkins, who is Czech, comes from a family of tailors and developed an interest in structures and forms at an early age. Through fashion sketches and portrait drawings, and under the influence of Impressionism, she eventually found her way to painting, which she enriches with her unique impasto technique. Her compositions, mostly medium and large in scale, appear like fragments of an infinite world that seems to extend beyond the boundaries of the canvas—even toward the viewer. Hopkins deliberately enhances this effect by using deep stretcher frames. Thus, her works can be interpreted as explorations of perception. »What we see often depends on how we choose to look«, explains Hopkins, who will be appearing as a Featured Artist in the 57th issue of Create! magazine, to be published in late June 2026. She explores what eludes immediate description: transitions, changes, and those moments when the visible world transforms into something personal and inner.