Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Chair Beneath the Moon

A single chair stands on an expanse of dark, textured ground, beneath a moon so large it seems to hang just above the seat like a held breath. The scale is deliberate, one small and ordinary object measured against something vast and luminous, and in that measuring, a quiet story of solitude begins to unfold.

The chair waits. It does not reach for the moon, it does not need to. It simply holds its place in a night that could otherwise swallow it whole, upright and modest beneath all that pale weight. There is something tender in that stillness, the way one empty seat can carry both absence and presence at the same time.

No paint. No print. No ink. The moon and the ground around it are built through controlled scratches worked into the acrylic glass, controlled surface damage rather than colour laid on top. The image is not applied onto the surface, it is drawn out of the surface itself, each mark catching light differently from the plane around it.

The work is always present, visible even in soft, ambient light. Direct light does not summon the moon from nothing, it sharpens what is already there, deepening the contrast between that glowing sphere and the darkness pressing in around it. It reads differently from different angles, the surface shifting between quiet and shine, without ever losing its shape.

Seen from across a room, it reads as one monumental gesture, a private moon suspended over an empty chair. Move closer and that smooth glow resolves into a fine, worked field of controlled scratches, each one part of a single calm form.

Beneath that surface is a quieter idea, about smallness held with dignity, about how one modest chair beneath an impossible moon can stand in for anyone who has ever felt dwarfed by something larger than themselves, and chosen to stay anyway.

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. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure.

"Even beneath the largest moon, the chair still holds its ground."

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.