Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Void. A Face Kept in Layers

A classical head rests against black, curls catching light the way marble has always caught light. Then the face itself gives way. Five thin planes hold the features apart, drifting just far enough from one another that eyes, nose and mouth are never quite whole in a single glance. Beneath it all the expression stays calm, almost unaware of what has happened to it.

Here a face is treated as something layered rather than solid, the way memory keeps a person: not one continuous image but separate moments held slightly apart, still aligned, still recognisable, never quite touching. Looked at long enough, the gaps stop reading as breaks and start reading as breathing room.

Nothing was added to make this. No paint, no print, no ink shapes what appears here. The likeness is built from depth and from what has been left out, and it depends entirely on the light that finds it and the angle from which it is seen. Step past it and the face can nearly disappear into the black; stand still and it gathers itself back into a portrait.

From across a room the work is quiet and monumental, a single pale form suspended in the dark. Closer, that stillness resolves into a field of separations, each one catching its own sliver of light. It asks for both distances, the held breath from afar and the attention paid up close.

A Face Kept in Layers continues the Art with Void series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through depth and absence rather than paint or print.

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

"Some faces are kept whole by what holds them apart."

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.