Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Two Hearts Held in Red

Two cherries, bound by a single twist of stem and one small leaf, is one of the oldest small images for love: two held as one, inseparable, caught at the exact moment before they might be pulled apart. Two Hearts Held in Red takes that small still life and turns it into something larger than a kitchen table, a quiet study in what closeness looks like when almost everything else is taken away. The fruit itself is barely there. What remains is a thin bright line tracing each round outline, a single curved gleam on each skin, the stems and the veined leaf drawn in light, and the rest, the full weight of the cherries, left to the dark. Nothing in the image is filled in. Everything you read as form, you complete yourself, the eye finishing what a few marks only suggest. That suggestion happens in the material, not on top of it. The work is scratched into the surface of deep red coloured mirror glass, a field of individual marks worked until an image is held rather than drawn. No paint, no print, no ink, only removal. Red carries its own charge here, the colour of the fruit, of the heart it is shaped like, of blood and want and closeness all at once. Because the surface is mirrored, the room is never fully gone from the work. Step back and the two cherries resolve into a tight, monumental pair, suspended in a red void. Step closer and that clarity breaks apart into a field of fine scratches, with your own reflection caught somewhere between the stems. You are never only looking at this piece, you are standing inside it. The image is always present, in daylight or in darkness. Light does not create it, it sharpens it: under direct light the scratches catch and the contrast deepens, while in softer rooms only the reflection around the piece changes, never the image itself. This work is unique, continuing 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. This is the idea at the centre of the series: a visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure, and where the mirror turns looking into taking part. Here, two small fruits hold their shape in light alone, bound together by what was taken away rather than what was added. "Two held as one, drawn in what the light leaves behind." About Art on Mirror – Red 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 red 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 red. 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 red 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. Red is the colour of blood, of fire and of everything we cannot stay calm about. 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.

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