Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Daphne in the Green

Bernini's Daphne is one of the most quoted bodies in art history, carved in the instant between flight and transformation. This work does not repeat that moment in marble. It lets most of her go, keeping only what the light will hold: the curve of her spine, the raised arms, the first leaves breaking from her fingers.

The rest stays black, untouched, a void she seems to be running out of. What remains is built from a field of fine scratches, individual marks pressed into the surface rather than drawn or painted onto it, until a figure gathers out of nothing but accumulated light.

Green carries the subject here. It is the colour of laurel, of the tree Daphne becomes rather than the woman she was escaping, and it settles the whole scene into the hush of a myth still mid breath, still becoming, neither fully human nor fully leaf.

The work is shaped in deep green coloured mirror glass. Around the figure, in the dark ground that holds her, the room and whoever stands in front of it are returned in reflection, so looking at Daphne also means seeing yourself caught in her clearing.

Light does not create her. It sharpens what is already there. From a distance she reads as a single luminous gesture; up close she dissolves into the controlled surface damage that formed her, mark by mark.

"Daphne in the 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. This work is unique.

"Even mid flight, she is already becoming something that cannot be caught."

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.

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