Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Reach Held in Green

A Reach Held in Green She stands on the balls of her feet, her whole body drawn upward into one long line, reaching past her own height toward a single apple caught on a branch above her. A slender snake hangs from that same branch, watching her the way only something older than her ever could. Her hair stays unlit, a dark fall against the void, while her raised arm, her shoulder blades and the curve of her hip emerge as if the darkness had just released them. The work is shaped in deep green coloured mirror glass, and the green is not decoration. It is the colour of the garden she is standing in before the reach is finished, the colour of leaf and branch and everything still growing, still whole. Her figure is cut from that green as a field of fine scratches, present rather than painted, closer to something uncovered than something made. No paint, no print, no ink. The image exists because the surface was taken away in exactly the places where light needed to gather, leaving the rest in a darkness that was never touched. From across the room she reads as a single gesture, one arm raised into stillness. Up close, that gesture opens into a field of individual marks, each one holding its own sliver of light. The image is always there, with or without a spotlight. Light does not create her, it sharpens her: under direct light the contrast deepens, the scratches catch and hold their shine, and she comes forward from the glass with more weight. Turn away, dim the room, and she remains exactly where she was, patient as the moment just before a choice. Around her, the coloured mirror keeps doing its own work. The gallery wall, the window, the person standing in front of it, all of it gathers in the green surrounding her outstretched arm, so that whoever is looking becomes part of the same darkness she is reaching out of. The snake sees her. The glass makes sure you are seen too. This piece 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. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure, and where the mirror turns looking into taking part. "Some reaches are remembered less for what was taken than for the light they left behind." About Art on Mirror – Green 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 green 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 green. 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 green 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. Green is the colour of growth, of forests and of things that keep returning. 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.

Estimación:€3,500

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