Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Minotaur Held in the Red

Minotaur Held in the Red brings the oldest prisoner of myth into the stillness of coloured mirror glass. He sits on a stone block, elbows on his knees, the great head of a bull bowed low, caught in the instant before he looks up, or perhaps the instant after he has given up looking. The light gathers where the body is most itself, along the curve of the horns, over the thick hump of the neck, across the shoulders that still carry the memory of strength. There, a field of fine scratches catches every change in the room and answers it. The face stays low, the legs stay in shadow, held back in the deep red rather than offered up. Red is not decoration here. It is the colour of blood and of confinement, of the labyrinth walls that never let him out, and it surrounds the figure the way guilt surrounds a myth that refuses to end. Nothing is applied onto the surface of the mirror. The image is formed by removal, a field of individual marks taken from the coloured glass rather than placed onto it, so what is missing becomes the Minotaur and what remains becomes the red he is still standing in. Seen from across the room the figure is monumental, an almost human weight settled onto stone. Close up, it loosens into controlled surface damage, one direction of scratches after another, never adding up to more than light. The mirror does not let the viewer stand apart. Around the bowed head and between the scratches, the room and whoever is standing in it appear in the red glass, pulled into the same confinement the Minotaur has never left. Light does not create this image. It sharpens it, deepening the contrast without ever letting the figure disappear. Minotaur Held in the Red 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. "Even the monster waits to be seen." 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.

Schätzpreis:€3,500

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