Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Void. A Ring of Turning White

The image reads first as motion, though nothing in it moves. Thick white forms fan outward from a dark, empty centre, each one bending as it travels, curving over an unseen tube before settling at the outer rim. Against the black, the ring feels caught mid turn, a wheel of white light frozen just before it spins away.

Nothing here was added to make this shape. The circle exists because material was taken away in a controlled rhythm, spoke after spoke, until only the ridges remained to carry the light. What looks solid from a distance dissolves, up close, into a field of depth: shadow pooling in every groove, brightness gathering along every raised edge.

The empty centre is the quiet heart of the piece. A ring is, by nature, a shape built around an absence, and here that absence is left open and dark, a small void inside the larger one. Everything white in the work bends toward it and away from it at once, gesturing toward a middle it will never fill.

Seen from across a room, the piece settles into a single calm gesture, a circle of pale motion on a field of black. Move closer and it fractures into dozens of individual forms, each catching the light differently, each holding its own small passage of shadow. The work asks to be seen twice, from far and from near, and gives a different truth each time.

A ring has always carried meaning beyond its shape: continuity, return, the turning of something that has no beginning and no end. Here that idea is rendered almost literally, a wheel of forms that seem to rotate without a single one of them actually moving, held together by nothing more than depth, contrast and the angle of the light falling across it.

A Ring of Turning White continues the Art with Void series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through depth and absence rather than paint or print. This work is unique.

A visual language where absence is not emptiness, but presence.

"It turns without moving, and reveals itself only to those willing to look twice."

About Art with Void

Art with Void is a body of work in which the image is not built through addition. but revealed through absence.

From a distance. the image is unmistakable. Strong. clear and immediately present. Yet up close. the work transforms. The viewer discovers a surface composed of precisely carved micro voids in high quality acrylic glass. What seemed whole and still from afar becomes detailed. delicate and deeply structured.

Light is essential to the work. In daylight. reflections shift and the image changes subtly with its environment. In darkness. under a focused spotlight. the acrylic glass comes fully alive. Depth intensifies. reflections sharpen. and the image takes on an almost magical presence.

This interplay between distance and proximity. image and structure. stillness and transformation lies at the heart of Art with Void. It is a visual language built on reduction. yet rich in atmosphere. precision and presence.

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.