Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Cleopatra Charms the Light

Cleopatra Charms the Light holds a queen at the edge of visibility, caught in profile as a rim of brightness traces her crown, her collar and the curve of her raised arm. No paint, no print, no ink. The image is scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, and every line that defines her, headdress, jewelled collar, reaching hand, exists because the surface was taken away, not added to. In her palm a serpent coils and climbs, its body drawn from the same field of fine scratches that gives her face its light. The gesture reads as command and as warning at once, the queen who ruled an empire and the queen whose story closes with a snake at her wrist. Cleopatra Charms the Light does not choose between the two. It lets power and mortality rest in the same raised hand. From across a room the work reads as a single commanding silhouette, a ruler built from light and shadow rather than detail. Move closer and that figure opens into a field of individual marks, controlled scratches worked into the acrylic glass until they gather into a crown, a throat, a listening profile. The closer you look, the more the image asks to be read as structure rather than picture. The image is always present, held in the surface rather than applied onto it. Light does not create it, it sharpens it. Under direct light the scratches catch and the contrast deepens, the collar grows heavier, the serpent more alive, while in softer light the same queen recedes into quiet, patient in the dark. It reads differently from different angles, without ever losing her. Cleopatra Charms the Light continues the Art with Scratch series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, a visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure. "A queen who commands, even as she holds the thing that will undo her." 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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