Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Shield Scratched From Silver

A bottle waits in a bucket of hammered silver, shoulders sunk deep in ice that has not quite finished its work. One hard light falls from the side, and the room around it has already gone to black. Before a cork is pulled, before a single glass is filled, there is only this: a shield shaped label turned toward the light, and a surface already beaded with water that has nowhere left to go.

In the finished work the bucket survives almost whole. Its rim, its body and the loop of its handles are held as a field of fine scratches, catching the light edge on and reading as worked, dented silver even from across a room. The label answers it with a smaller blaze of its own, the shield shape legible in marks alone, enough to name it plainly as Dom Pérignon, the work's subject; this is an independent artwork by Tijs Dragtsma, not made, licensed or endorsed by that house. Above it, the long dark neck, the foil and the straining cork are let go entirely, folded back into the same black the room is made of, a silhouette the eye completes rather than reads.

What stays lit here is not the wine. It is the waiting, the vessel built to hold cold, the label that promises what is inside before anyone has tasted it, the water already sliding down glass that has not yet been touched. Objects of Desire has always cared less about owning a thing than about the moment just before it is used, the patience a collector keeps as carefully as the object itself.

A Shield Scratched From Silver belongs to Objects of Desire, 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 looking at the things we keep cold and ready, and asking what we are really waiting for before we let ourselves have them.

No paint. No print. No ink. The bucket, the label and the beads of water are scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, a field of individual marks that catches and holds light rather than reflecting a picture back at you. The image is present in full room light as much as under a single lamp; a directed source does not summon it, it only sharpens the contrast and lets the silver read as silver.

Seen from across a room it is a bottle cooling in the dark. Seen up close it is only a field of scratches, patient work pretending to be ice and metal. Somewhere between those two distances sits the question the series keeps asking, what is it you are willing to keep waiting for, cold and ready, before you let yourself have it.

"Some things are worth the wait before the pour."

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.

This listing contains AI-generated visualisations. Please refer to the original photographs to assess the actual condition of the object.