Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Even Crowns Collapse
02
days
13
hours
00
minutes
52
seconds
Starting bid
€ 1
Reserve price not met
No bids placed
Catawiki Buyer Protection
Your payment’s safe with us until you receive your object.View details
Trustpilot 4.4 | 140963 reviews
Rated Excellent on Trustpilot.
Even Crowns Collapse is a 51 × 51 cm original, mixed media contemporary artwork by Dutch artist Tijs Dragtsma (born 1992), signed and sold with frame, dated 2026, in black and white, with excellent condition."
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
Even Crowns Collapse is a contemporary artwork about power, downfall, and the silence that follows greatness.
A figure descends through darkness. Roman garments catch the light. A crown, outstretched limbs, a body suspended between dignity and ruin. The image holds itself in stillness, as if the fall has only just begun and time has not yet caught up.
No paint. No print. No ink. The figure is not placed onto the surface. It is drawn out of it. Controlled surface damage on acrylic glass allows light to gather where the material has been altered. What appears is not added. It is revealed.
The work shifts as you move. From one angle the emperor stands illuminated and monumental. From another, he dissolves back into shadow. Light does not simply show the image. It determines whether the image exists at all. Seen from a distance, the composition commands the room. Approach, and the figure gives way to a field of controlled scratches, abstract and dense.
The medium and the subject speak the same language. Power built on accumulation. An image built on removal. What held authority over nations now falls through the dark, reaching for something that no longer answers. Even crowns collapse when the light shifts.
Even Crowns Collapse 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.
"Even at the height of power, the fall is already written."
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.
Even Crowns Collapse is a contemporary artwork about power, downfall, and the silence that follows greatness.
A figure descends through darkness. Roman garments catch the light. A crown, outstretched limbs, a body suspended between dignity and ruin. The image holds itself in stillness, as if the fall has only just begun and time has not yet caught up.
No paint. No print. No ink. The figure is not placed onto the surface. It is drawn out of it. Controlled surface damage on acrylic glass allows light to gather where the material has been altered. What appears is not added. It is revealed.
The work shifts as you move. From one angle the emperor stands illuminated and monumental. From another, he dissolves back into shadow. Light does not simply show the image. It determines whether the image exists at all. Seen from a distance, the composition commands the room. Approach, and the figure gives way to a field of controlled scratches, abstract and dense.
The medium and the subject speak the same language. Power built on accumulation. An image built on removal. What held authority over nations now falls through the dark, reaching for something that no longer answers. Even crowns collapse when the light shifts.
Even Crowns Collapse 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.
"Even at the height of power, the fall is already written."
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.
Details
Artist
Tijs Dragtsma (1992)
Sold with frame
Yes
Sold by
Direct from the artist
Edition
Original
Title of artwork
Even Crowns Collapse
Technique
Mixed media
Signature
Signed
Country of origin
Netherlands
Year
2026
Condition
Excellent condition
Colour
Black, White
Height
51 cm
Width
51 cm
Style
Contemporary
Period
2020+
Sold by
