Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Psyche Wakes in Light

Two strokes of light rise like wings from a knot of brightness at the center, and at the center of that knot, where two faces should almost touch, the dark stays dark. The kiss itself is the one thing the work keeps for itself, held back in a core of near-black while everything around it, the arms, the lifted wings, the long fall of drapery beneath her, is given over to a field of fine scratches. This is after Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, the marble carved by Antonio Canova and finished in 1793, now held in the Louvre in Paris. Canova set the story at its single most charged second, the moment a kiss wakes Psyche from the death that fell on her the instant she opened a box she had been warned never to open. This is an independent work by Tijs Dragtsma, a new interpretation in scratches and not a copy, reproduction or print of Canova's sculpture. What the original is loved for is that it turns stone into breath, the hardest material made to carry the softest instant, her arms curving up to circle his head before she has even opened her eyes, his wings thrown high as if startled by his own tenderness. The whole sculpture is built on that cross of gestures, reaching toward reaching, and almost nothing else. What survives here is that cross entire: the lift of the wings, the arc of her arms finding his head, the long reclining weight of her body and the drapery gathered beneath it. What is given up is the marble itself, its cool white weight, the pedestal, the gallery light that usually falls on it in Paris. All of it surrenders to one black field, so that only the reaching, and the kiss it is reaching toward, remain as light. Psyche Wakes in Light belongs to After the Masters, a series within Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, and in which that same damage becomes a way of asking how little of a masterpiece the eye still needs before it knows the whole, and what a familiar embrace looks like once everything but the reach of it is let go. No paint. No print. No ink. The figures are held in a field of individual marks scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, always present, never waiting for light to call them into being. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it, and the dark at the center of the embrace stays exactly where Canova first carved it, a kiss the work still will not quite show. "Some revivals happen in the open. This one happens just out of reach of the light." 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.

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