Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Montana in Half Light

lot/tijs dragtsma 1992 montana in half light jU74fVa 633376639 / Price history

lot/tijs dragtsma 1992 montana in half light jU74fVa 633376639

For saleAuction results

lot/tijs dragtsma 1992 montana in half light jU74fVa 633376639

For saleAuction results

Bring your auction to collectors worldwide!

Get listed now

Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Montana in Half Light

Out of near total black, a face arrives half by memory, half by will. Montana in Half Light finds its subject in fragments, the jaw set, the eyes lowered and unblinking, the collar open as though the suit itself cannot contain what lives beneath it. This is not a portrait of a man so much as of a myth people carry with them, the underworld figure who built an empire on nerve and lost everything to it. No paint. No print. No ink. Every plane of light on that face, from the damp shine of hair to the soft crease along the cheek, is scratched into the surface of a single sheet of acrylic glass. The image is built by what has been taken away, not what has been added, a portrait carved from controlled surface damage until darkness itself became a kind of skin. The image is always present. It does not wait for a lamp to switch on or a viewer to walk past. Light does not create it, it sharpens it. Under a raking light the scratches catch and hold, the contrast deepens, and the face seems to lean forward out of the black. Seen from another angle, it settles into quiet, but it never disappears. There is something fitting in rendering Tony Montana this way. He is remembered for reinvention through violence, for wanting more until more consumed him. Here his face is remade again, not through paint but through controlled scratches that behave less like decoration and more like scar tissue. Power, in this piece, looks like something that had to be earned by force and paid for at cost. Seen from across a room, the work reads as pure cinema, a single monumental face suspended in darkness. Move closer and that certainty dissolves into a dense field of controlled scratches, none of them shouting, all of them necessary. The distance between those two readings, icon and evidence, is where the piece does its real work. Montana in Half 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. "Even in the dark, some faces refuse to disappear." 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.

Estimate:$3,921.61

Sold for:-