Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Hands That Cast a Bird
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Tijs Dragtsma presents Hands That Cast a Bird, a 2026 original mixed‑media work in black and white, 51 × 51 cm, sold with frame, signed, from the Netherlands, in excellent condition.
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Description from the seller
Two hands rise into a rectangle of light, and on the wall behind them their joined shadow is not a pair of hands anymore. It is a bird, wings spread mid flight, caught in the instant between gesture and creature.
Look twice and the reading shifts. At first the eye settles on the hands, cupped and reaching upward, ordinary and human. Then the shadow behind them pulls focus, and what was a simple silhouette resolves into something with wings, something airborne, something that could leave the wall entirely. The two readings do not cancel each other out. Both stay true at once, and the quiet pleasure of the work is catching yourself switching between them.
No paint. No print. No ink. The image exists only because the surface of the acrylic glass has been taken away, not added to. A field of individual marks forms the glowing rectangle of light and lets the bird emerge as dark, untouched space inside it, while the deep background and the darker hands on the right stay as pure, unscratched black.
The image is always present, with or without direct light. Light does not create it, it sharpens it. Under a focused source, the field of fine scratches catches and reflects, the contrast deepens, and the bird seems to draw closer to flight. It reads differently from different angles, without ever losing its shape or its stillness.
From across a room, the work settles into a single, monumental image, a hand becoming a bird in one unbroken gesture. Close up, that same image dissolves into the controlled surface damage that built it, a quiet record of removal rather than addition.
Hands That Cast a Bird belongs to Look Twice, a series within Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, and in which that same damage becomes a way of catching the instant a human gesture is read as something else entirely, hands becoming wings before the eye can decide which is true.
A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure. This work is unique.
"What the hands hold, the shadow sets free."
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.
Two hands rise into a rectangle of light, and on the wall behind them their joined shadow is not a pair of hands anymore. It is a bird, wings spread mid flight, caught in the instant between gesture and creature.
Look twice and the reading shifts. At first the eye settles on the hands, cupped and reaching upward, ordinary and human. Then the shadow behind them pulls focus, and what was a simple silhouette resolves into something with wings, something airborne, something that could leave the wall entirely. The two readings do not cancel each other out. Both stay true at once, and the quiet pleasure of the work is catching yourself switching between them.
No paint. No print. No ink. The image exists only because the surface of the acrylic glass has been taken away, not added to. A field of individual marks forms the glowing rectangle of light and lets the bird emerge as dark, untouched space inside it, while the deep background and the darker hands on the right stay as pure, unscratched black.
The image is always present, with or without direct light. Light does not create it, it sharpens it. Under a focused source, the field of fine scratches catches and reflects, the contrast deepens, and the bird seems to draw closer to flight. It reads differently from different angles, without ever losing its shape or its stillness.
From across a room, the work settles into a single, monumental image, a hand becoming a bird in one unbroken gesture. Close up, that same image dissolves into the controlled surface damage that built it, a quiet record of removal rather than addition.
Hands That Cast a Bird belongs to Look Twice, a series within Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, and in which that same damage becomes a way of catching the instant a human gesture is read as something else entirely, hands becoming wings before the eye can decide which is true.
A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure. This work is unique.
"What the hands hold, the shadow sets free."
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.
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