Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Breath Bends the Flame

Marilyn Monroe leans into a single flame, lips pursed, about to send her breath across it. The candle bends under that breath and the light climbs into her face, catching the curve of her cheek and the beauty mark that has outlived every photograph of her. This work carries that instant into acrylic glass, built from a field of individual marks that hold her features in place of pigment. No paint. No print. No ink. The image is not applied onto the surface, it is scratched into it. What reads as hair, as skin, as the soft collapse of her shoulders into darkness, is a field of fine scratches formed directly into the material, each one catching light differently, together holding a face the world already knows by heart. Monumental from a distance, this portrait becomes something else up close, a surface of controlled scratches, a texture that asks to be read rather than simply seen. The black background stays absolute, untouched, so that every curl of platinum hair and every plane of her face has to be earned from darkness rather than given by it. Monroe blowing out a candle is already an image about a breath held and released, about a woman caught between performance and a private, unguarded second. Shaped through removal rather than addition, that same tension repeats in the work itself. The glow around her is not something added, it is what remains once everything else has been taken away. Light does not create this image. It sharpens it. Under a directed source the scratches catch and the contrast deepens, the flame seems to lift slightly off the glass, the curls gain weight. From another angle the same face reads quieter, more interior, the half closed eyes pulling the whole portrait inward. The image is always present, it simply asks the room to meet it differently. This work continues the Art with Scratch series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print. This work is unique. "A breath held in light, a face held in damage." About Art with Scratch Art with Scratch is a body of work in which the image is not drawn, but released. Carved line by line into a deep black surface, each work emerges through countless precise scratches that catch the light and bring form out of darkness. From a distance, the image appears almost photographic. Powerful, recognisable and full of presence. Yet up close, the work dissolves into a dense field of individual marks. Fine, fragile and almost weightless. What seemed solid reveals itself as a delicate web of lines, each one a deliberate gesture, each one essential to the whole. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it. The black surface absorbs, while the scratched lines reflect. As light shifts across the surface, the image breathes. From one angle the figure stands clear and defined. From another it softens and settles back toward the darkness from which it came, without ever disappearing. Under a focused spotlight, the contrast deepens and the image takes on a sculptural, almost luminous quality. What makes this medium so compelling is its quiet tension. The act of scratching is direct and irreversible. Every line is a decision that cannot be undone. Yet the result is not harsh. It is intimate, atmospheric and alive with movement. Hardness becomes softness. Destruction becomes creation. Absence becomes presence. In works such as this portrait, the figure is never fully fixed. Through the interplay of line, light and shadow, the image shifts with perspective and atmosphere. At certain moments, the subject seems to step forward out of the black. At others, it settles back into stillness. It is within that movement, between sharpness and calm, that the work comes alive. Like all materials touched by time, the surface carries its own quiet life. Each scratch holds a moment, a breath, a gesture. Together they form not just an image, but a presence, one that continues to reveal itself with every change of light. About the Artist My name is Tijs Dragtsma, founder of TD Fine Art Studio. As an artist, I am driven by a constant desire to explore new visual languages. I do not see art as a fixed style, but as an evolving field of discovery where material, structure, light and emotion come together. My work often begins with a simple question. How can a material speak in a new way. How can hardness become intimacy. How can precision create emotion. That search lies at the heart of everything I create. Within TD Fine Art Studio, each body of work is approached as its own world, with its own logic, atmosphere and visual identity. Some works are built through rhythm, repetition and structure. Others emerge through absence, shadow, reflection or tension. What connects them is a shared commitment to originality, clarity and emotional presence. I am fascinated by contrast. Between strength and fragility. Between control and feeling. Between what is visible and what is left open to interpretation. My goal is not simply to make an image, but to create a work that holds attention, invites reflection and continues to reveal itself over time. TD Fine Art Studio is the space in which these explorations come together. It is not only a studio, but an evolving artistic universe shaped by curiosity, precision and the ambition to create work that feels distinctive, intentional and alive.

Stima:€3,500

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