Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Wheel Held in Green

A Wheel Held in Green shows a single wedge of citrus, cut through its center so its ribs of pulp fan outward like the spokes of a wheel. Cored to a bright white heart, the fruit reads at once as a wheel, a sun, and a compass rose, a wholly ordinary object lifted into architecture by the strength of its own geometry. The image is not painted, printed or applied onto the surface. It exists through controlled scratches, a field of individual marks worked directly into a sheet of deep green mirror glass, where the rind and every segment membrane are separated from the surrounding green by nothing more than the presence, or the absence, of that abrasion. The image is always there, present in the glass whether the room is lit softly or directly. Light does not create it, light sharpens it, under a strong beam the marks catch and lift and the contrast deepens, so the wheel of fruit seems to turn faster in place. Step to the side and the picture holds, only the reflection around it moves. That reflection is the second half of the work. Around and between the scratched lines, the mirror gives back the room itself, its walls, its other works, whoever is standing in front of it. The viewer is drawn into the same green field the fruit occupies, no longer just looking at the wheel but caught inside it. Green is not incidental here. It is the color of the rind before it is cut, of sourness, of a fruit that stays sharp and alive long after sweeter things have gone soft. Held in a green surface, the wedge becomes a small, cool sun, its segments a radiant clock face measuring out freshness rather than time. A Wheel 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. “A wheel of green light, cut open and held still.” 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. This listing contains AI-generated visualisations. Please refer to the original photographs to assess the actual condition of the object.

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