Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Stairway Cut From Void

A staircase, cut loose from any ground, is suspended diagonally across a field of absolute black. It bends once, changes direction, and keeps rising, carrying a line of solitary figures who never quite arrive anywhere inside the frame.

There is no floor beneath the stairs, no wall, no horizon, only white stone and black nothing. Each figure walks alone, spaced apart from the next, trailing a shadow back into the dark. Some climb. Some pause mid step. None look toward each other.

No paint. No print. No ink. The staircase and its travelers exist because the surface itself has been taken away: controlled scratches worked directly into the surface of the acrylic glass until this structure emerged from what remains.

The image is always present, in daylight and in shadow alike. Light does not create it. It sharpens it. Under direct light the scratches catch and hold the glow, the contrast deepens, and the work reads differently from every angle, without ever losing its shape.

From across a room, the staircase resolves into one continuous, monumental climb suspended in darkness. Standing close, that certainty breaks apart into a quiet field of controlled surface damage, each mark quiet on its own, essential to the structure as a whole.

It is an old, familiar ache rendered in white stone and void: the sense of climbing without knowing what waits above, in the company of others who are, in the end, each walking entirely alone. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure. This work continues the Art with Scratch series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print.

"Everyone climbs. No one climbs together."

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.