Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Thorn Holds Its Fire

A single rose stands alone in the frame, drawn not with pigment but with a field of individual marks cut into deep red coloured mirror glass. Nothing surrounds it: no stem of context, no room to place it in, only the flower and the void it grows from. The bloom, the stem, the two leaves and the thorns that guard them all emerge the same way, as fine lines that hold the light against a colour that will not let you forget what a rose is made of. Red is not decoration here, it is the flower's own blood, its heat, the colour underneath every love letter and every warning a thorn ever gave. The rose keeps its bloom, its curled outer petals traced in one bright, unbroken line, but it lets go of softness. There is no photographic detail left to hide behind, only the shape the eye already knows by heart. No paint. No print. No ink. The image is scratched into the surface of the coloured mirror glass, a field of fine scratches that hold their place whether or not any light falls on them directly. Light does not create this rose. It sharpens it, deepens the contrast along the petal's edge, and lets the thorns along the stem stand a little sharper in the glass. Step back and the flower reads as one whole gesture, upright and quiet, monumental in its restraint. Step closer and it dissolves into the controlled surface damage that built it, a field of individual marks with no single mark asking to be noticed on its own. Between those two distances is where the work actually lives. The mirror glass never lets the viewer stand outside the image. The room, its light, whoever is standing in front of the rose, all of it is folded into the red surface around and between the scratches, so looking at the flower means finding yourself inside it too. The reflection shifts with the room, the rose itself does not. A thorn is proof that something worth holding usually costs something to hold. This work continues the Art on Mirror series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which scratched imagery is set into coloured mirror glass and the viewer becomes part of the work. "Even alone in the dark, a rose keeps its fire." About Art on Mirror – Red Art on Mirror is a body of work in which the image is scratched into coloured mirror glass, and the world in front of the work becomes part of it. Every line is cut into a deep red mirrored surface of acrylic glass. The scratches are always there, bright against the colour, while the surface around them keeps reflecting the room, the daylight and the person looking. From a distance the image reads clear and complete, a pale figure held in a field of red. Step closer and the work opens into a delicate web of individual marks, fine and deliberate, each one essential to the whole. Behind and between them the mirror does what a mirror does. It carries the room and the viewer into the composition, so the surroundings in the work change with the place where it hangs, while the image itself stays firmly in place. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it. The red ground absorbs and reflects, the scratched lines catch and hold, and under a focused spotlight the contrast deepens until the figure takes on a sculptural, almost luminous quality. In softer light the colour comes forward and the work settles into a quieter register, without ever losing its subject. Red is the colour of blood, of fire and of everything we cannot stay calm about. That is the emotional ground every work in this series is set against, and the subjects are chosen to belong to it. Art on Mirror continues the scratched imagery of Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma on a new ground. Where the black works draw their power from absence, these draw it from reflection. The viewer is no longer only looking at the work. The viewer is in it. 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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