Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Two Shadows Learning to Waltz

Two Shadows Learning to Waltz holds a couple at the exact moment they disappear into their own silhouette. The dancers themselves never enter the frame, only the shape they throw against a wall, an embrace, a lifted hand, a skirt caught mid turn. What we are given is not a likeness but a trace, and that trace is enough to carry the whole intimacy of the dance.

No paint. No print. No ink. The image is scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, a field of individual marks that gathers into a glowing field of light around two dark, unbroken shapes. The wall becomes incandescent while the dancers stay exactly where shadows belong, cut out of the brightness, holding their pose in the dark.

The image is always present, with or without direct light. Light does not create it, it sharpens it, under a focused source the scratches catch and the contrast deepens, the glow around the couple gains depth, and the floor where their steps have worn a path of light grows brighter still. It reads differently from different angles, without ever losing the dance at its centre.

From across a room the work reads as a single luminous gesture, two figures turning inside a pool of light. Up close that light dissolves into a field of fine scratches, small marks that never once resolve into a face. The couple keeps their privacy. We are given their rhythm instead, the lean of one body into another, the moment just before or just after a turn.

That withholding is the quiet subject of the piece. A shadow is what remains of a person once the specifics fall away, the features, the identity, even the direction they are facing. What is left is pure connection, two shapes that only make sense together, learning the same step at the same time.

Two Shadows Learning to Waltz continues the Art with Scratch series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print. This work is unique.

"Some things are only visible once you let go of the need to see a face."

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.