Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Star Held in Green

A Star Held in Green begins with a shape everyone already knows. Long neck, rounded shoulder, a label turned so the star faces forward, the silhouette of a Heineken bottle pulled out of a deep black void. What arrives on this coloured mirror glass is not a photograph of a bottle, it is a field of individual marks, left behind so the thing we recognise in half a second can be recognised again here, differently.

The image is scratched into the surface of deep green mirror glass, not applied onto it. No paint, no print, the picture is formed where the material has been taken away rather than added to. One side of the bottle lights up, the rim of the glass, the beads of condensation, the edges of the label and the small white star at its centre, each one a field of controlled scratches that catch and hold the light. The rest of the bottle stays dark, swallowed by the glass itself, so the object reads less like a product shot and more like something remembered in a dim room.

Green carries its own meaning here, the colour of the brand becomes the colour of the mirror that holds it, so the work and its subject share one surface, one identity. Stand close and the bottle dissolves into a field of fine scratches, none of them pretending to be a photograph. Step back and it resolves into the one shape that has sold itself on bar tops and in advertising for generations, except now it hangs alone in a wide dark field, stripped of a hand, a table, a crowd.

Around the bottle, in the untouched glass, the room keeps showing through, the gallery wall, the track lighting, whoever is standing in front of it. The viewer is folded into the same green surface as the star and the label, so looking at a familiar bottle becomes, for a moment, looking at yourself looking at it. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it, deepening the contrast between the bright rim and the black glass, while the reflection around it keeps shifting with the room, and the image itself stays exactly where it was scratched.

A Star Held in Green continues the Art on Mirror series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which scratched imagery is set into coloured mirror glass and the viewer becomes part of the work. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure, and where the mirror turns looking into taking part.

"Even the most familiar shapes turn strange, held alone in the dark."

About Art on Mirror – Green

Art on Mirror is a body of work in which the image is scratched into coloured mirror glass, and the world in front of the work becomes part of it. Every line is cut into a deep green mirrored surface of acrylic glass. The scratches are always there, bright against the colour, while the surface around them keeps reflecting the room, the daylight and the person looking.

From a distance the image reads clear and complete, a pale figure held in a field of green. Step closer and the work opens into a delicate web of individual marks, fine and deliberate, each one essential to the whole. Behind and between them the mirror does what a mirror does. It carries the room and the viewer into the composition, so the surroundings in the work change with the place where it hangs, while the image itself stays firmly in place.

Light does not create the image. It sharpens it. The green ground absorbs and reflects, the scratched lines catch and hold, and under a focused spotlight the contrast deepens until the figure takes on a sculptural, almost luminous quality. In softer light the colour comes forward and the work settles into a quieter register, without ever losing its subject.

Green is the colour of growth, of forests and of things that keep returning. That is the emotional ground every work in this series is set against, and the subjects are chosen to belong to it.

Art on Mirror continues the scratched imagery of Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma on a new ground. Where the black works draw their power from absence, these draw it from reflection. The viewer is no longer only looking at the work. The viewer is in it.

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.