Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Effort Feeding Itself

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Effort Feeding Itself begins with a shape that should be simple. A sphere, a staircase, a single figure pushing it forward. But the stairs curve back beneath themselves, and the climb never ends anywhere. The figure pushes from both sides at once, as if the effort has folded in on itself and started feeding on its own motion.

Nothing here is added. The image exists because the surface has been taken away. Controlled scratches in acrylic glass carve the sphere, the staircase, the small human weight leaning into an impossible slope, and it is only through that removal that the scene becomes visible at all.

Light decides how much of the story you get to see. From one angle the composition dissolves into vast black negative space, quiet and unreadable. From another, it sharpens into clean white contours, and the whole absurd machinery of effort snaps into focus. The work asks you to move, because standing still gives you only half of it.

From across the room, the piece reads as a single monumental gesture, a figure and a sphere locked in an eternal, unwinnable loop. Step closer and that certainty breaks apart into a field of individual marks, each one small, each one necessary, the way real effort is made of countless invisible repetitions rather than one grand push.

There is a quiet honesty in that structure. Work that never resolves, ambition that curves back on itself, the sense of pushing hard against something that was never going to end. The staircase does not lie about that. It just keeps going.

This piece 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.

"Some climbs were never meant to end, only to continue."

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 thousands 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 is what gives this work its life. 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, recedes, almost disappears into the darkness from which it came. 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 retreats, leaving only a whisper of form. It is within that movement, between visibility and disappearance, 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.

*All purchases paid for between 3 August and 16 August will not be shipped within the usual three working days due to my holiday.

These purchases will be carefully packed and shipped between 17 August and 23 August at the latest. After your purchase, I will personally keep you informed about the expected shipping date.

Thank you for your understanding.