Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Hillside Scratched From Light

A hillside of white cube houses climbs into the night, each roof doubling as the terrace of the house above it, stairways threading between walls that should not stack the way they do. Windows catch the light at odd, scattered heights, in a town arranged like a puzzle that keeps answering itself. Nothing here is painted or printed. The town exists because the surface has been taken away, a field of fine scratches worked into the acrylic glass until certain walls catch the light and others do not. Lit windows, stair edges, the pale faces of cubes stacked toward the top of the hill, these hold the brightness. The roofs, the doorways, the long diagonal shadows, stay as untouched black, as if night had simply been left in place around the houses. The image is always present, in full daylight as in a room with no lamp aimed at it. Light does not create what is scratched into this acrylic glass, it sharpens it: under a direct source the staircases gather shine and the hillside seems to step forward out of the black, while from another angle the same town settles back into quiet. Seen from across a room the piece reads as a single architectural mass, a village folding uphill under one hard light. Move closer and that mass dissolves into the controlled surface damage that built it, a field of individual marks holding a geometry the eye keeps trying, and failing, to settle into something buildable. Inspired by M. C. Escher, the hillside is built on a small, stubborn impossibility: every roof serves as someone else's terrace, so the town has no true ground and no true top, only another house above the last one. Through it all the town keeps its own pace, unbothered by a geometry that refuses to resolve. A Hillside Scratched From Light belongs to Look Twice, a series within Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, and in which that same damage becomes a way of following a geometry that keeps climbing and never quite arrives. "A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure." 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. This listing contains AI-generated visualisations. Please refer to the original photographs to assess the actual condition of the object.

Stima:€3,500

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