Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Reach Across the Tide

lot/tijs dragtsma 1992 a reach across the tide 58XMYTT 633001937 / For sale

lot/tijs dragtsma 1992 a reach across the tide 58XMYTT 633001937

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lot/tijs dragtsma 1992 a reach across the tide 58XMYTT 633001937

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Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Reach Across the Tide

Two figures move through dark water toward each other. Their bodies stay black, closed, unreadable, while the sea around them is a field of fine scratches catching the light. Between them, an arm reaches out from each side, fingertips almost touching, held apart by the last inch of distance the water has not yet let them close. This work is scratched into deep blue coloured mirror glass. No paint, no print, no ink. The figures exist only because the water around them was taken away mark by mark, a field of individual marks removed from the surface until two shapes stood still inside all that movement. Blue carries the weight of the piece, the colour of night water, of distance, of the space a body has to cross to reach another body. It is the colour of longing held just before it resolves into touch. The image is always present, in any light. It does not appear or vanish with the room. Light does not create it, light sharpens it, so under a direct source the scratched water deepens in contrast and starts to move the way real water does, while the two silhouettes stay exactly as still and as close as they were. Because the surface is mirrored, the room and the viewer are pulled into the water too. Stand in front of it and your own reflection settles among the scratches, between the two reaching hands, so the gap the figures are trying to close is, for a moment, filled by whoever is standing there watching. From across a room the piece reads as one dark, starlit night and two figures caught mid gesture. Close up, that same night dissolves into a field of fine scratches, each one part of a sea that only becomes water again from a distance. 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. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure, and where the mirror turns looking into taking part. "The distance between two hands is where the whole sea lives." About Art on Mirror – Blue 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 blue 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 blue. 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 blue 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. Blue is the colour of night, of deep water and of quiet distance. 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:$3,986.73

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