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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Contemporary Art / Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A King Held in Green
In the deep green coloured mirror glass, a lion's face emerges without the mane that usually announces it. In its place sits a crown of oak leaves, overlapping like the plates of an old shield, formed not by paint but by a field of individual marks scratched into the surface itself. The eyes hold the viewer directly, unmoved, while the brow, the muzzle and the tips of the leaves catch the one source of light the work allows. The rest of the head sinks into black, a king's face withheld as much as it is revealed, dramatic and economical in equal measure. Green carries a weight here it would not carry elsewhere, the colour of oak leaves before the fall, of permanence rather than display, a crown grown rather than bestowed. Set into coloured mirror glass, the king's authority starts to feel closer to nature's own, quieter, and older than any throne. From across the room the work reads as a single commanding presence, a portrait cut whole from the dark. Up close, that presence dissolves into a field of fine scratches, controlled surface damage that only resolves back into a face at a distance. The image sits in the surface itself, not applied onto it, so it stays present in every light. Around the lion, the mirror holds the room and the person standing in front of it. Gallery walls, other works, your own outline settle into the dark green field surrounding the king, so that looking at him means appearing beside him. Light does not create the image, it sharpens it, deepening the contrast without ever changing what is shown. A King Held in Green 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. "Not crowned. Grown." 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.
Estimate:$3,921.55
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