Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Tommy Shelby's Quiet Communion

Tommy Shelby's Quiet Communion holds a single gesture, a man known for command and calculation closing his eyes and resting his forehead against a horse, nothing between them but trust. The flat cap, the long coat, the hard profile of Peaky Blinders are all still there, but for this one moment the character is not performing power, he is simply present.

In the finished piece that moment is told through absence as much as presence. The horse's head and neck rise as a wide, glowing field of fine marks, every ridge of muscle and mane caught in light, while Tommy's cap and profile sit beside it as a quieter, more withheld shape, half given to the dark that surrounds them both. The eye moves from the horse's brightness into the man's restraint, and that movement is the story.

No paint, no print, no ink. The image is built on acrylic glass through controlled scratches, a field of fine marks worked directly into the surface until the horse's weight and the man's stillness rise out of the material itself, shaped from nothing but removal.

The image is always present, in any light. Direct light does not summon it from hiding, it simply sharpens what is already there, deepening the contrast between the horse's glow and the man's shadowed calm, so the piece reads with a little more depth depending on where you stand and how the light falls.

Seen up close, the work breaks into a field of individual scratches, disordered and handworked in feeling, catching light like hide and wool. Step back and the two heads resolve into one quiet, monumental image, power momentarily set down.

This piece continues the Art with Scratch series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, treating damage not as destruction but as structure, a way of finding tenderness in a figure built on control.

"Even the hardest man needs something soft to lean on."

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.