Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Grid Suspended in Depth

A disco ball hangs from a thin chain, suspended in a field of deep blue. In this new Art on Mirror piece, the object is stripped back to its bones: the grid of facet lines, a scatter of sparkle bursts, and nothing more. Everything else is left to the blue, untouched, so the ball reads less as an object than as a structure of light holding its own shape in the glass. The image is formed by removal, not addition. Where the surface has been worked, a field of fine marks and coarse halftone dots catches the light and glows against the coloured mirror glass beneath. Where it has not, the ball falls away into silhouette, half revealed and half withheld, so the sphere seems to turn between visibility and shadow without ever fully resolving into either. The disco ball carries its own memory: of rooms once full of movement, of light thrown across a crowd that has since gone quiet. Here that motion is stilled into a single, suspended gesture, a grid holding depth rather than spinning it, monumental from a distance and, up close, a surface built entirely from a field of individual marks. Blue carries the mood of the piece, the colour of night, of distance, of a room remembered after the music has stopped. It gives the ball its stillness and its weight, a quiet counterpart to the celebration the object usually stands for. The coloured mirror glass is part of the work. Around and between the scratches, the room and the person standing before it are folded into the surface, so the viewer becomes part of the composition rather than someone simply looking at it. Step closer or further away, and the reflection shifts while the grid itself holds its ground. Light does not create this image. It sharpens it, deepening the contrast between the glowing grid and the dark body it hangs from, without ever changing what is there. 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. "A grid of light, suspended in blue, holding its shape long after the room has gone still." 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:£2,931.56

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