Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Moon and Sun Lean Close

Two heads lean toward each other at the exact edge of a kiss, one carrying the full weight of a cratered moon, the other burning with the thin, radiating lines of a sun. Between them sits the smallest possible distance, close enough that their light nearly fuses into one.

This image is not painted or printed onto the acrylic glass, it is formed by controlled surface damage, a field of individual marks scratched directly into the surface. No paint. No print. No ink. The moon's craters, the sun's rays and the quiet weight of two pale suits all come from scratches, not from anything laid on top.

From across the room the piece reads as a single monumental gesture, two bodies closing the last inch between them. Move closer and that gesture opens into a field of fine scratches, each one individually placed, none of them legible alone. The image only exists at the distance where removal becomes recognition.

Light does not create this image. It sharpens it. Under direct light the moon's surface and the sun's rays catch and reflect, the contrast deepens, and the suits gain a dimension no flat print could hold. Seen at a different angle, in quieter light, the same embrace reads with more restraint, but it never needs the light to exist.

The symbolism sits close to the surface without ever being explained. Moon and sun are opposites that are never meant to touch, night and day, cold light and burning light, and here they lean toward each other anyway, suits neatly on, faces replaced by the very bodies they represent. It is a kiss between two things that structurally cannot share a sky, held for exactly as long as the image lasts.

Moon and Sun Lean Close 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. This work is unique.

"Even the moon and the sun can lean in, if only for the length of one image."

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.