Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - A Shell Traced in Red

A ladybird, seen from directly above, is held in one unbroken line. The dome of its wing cases is not filled in but outlined, a single continuous contour carrying the whole weight of the creature, while the spots stay behind as solid dark shapes within the red.

The work is formed in deep red coloured mirror glass, through controlled scratches rather than paint or print. Nothing is added to the surface. The image exists because material has been taken away, a field of individual marks that leaves the insect floating alone in a wide, quiet margin of black.

From across a room the ladybird reads as a clean, glowing emblem, compact and certain. Step closer and that certainty opens into a field of fine scratches, each one small, each one necessary, none legible alone.

Light does not create this image. It sharpens it. The antennae and the six slender legs hold their shape in any room, in daylight or dim light alike, and under a direct source the contrast deepens and the glass gives the whole form a quiet shine.

Because the surface is mirror glass, the room enters the work. Walls, movement, the viewer's own reflection settle into the red around the ladybird, so that looking at the piece means standing inside it, if only for a moment.

Red is the colour of warning and of small, stubborn survival, the shade a ladybird wears as both camouflage and signal. Here that colour becomes the whole atmosphere, a field the creature is cut from rather than placed onto, its armour made weightless by light.

A Shell Traced in Red 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.

"A small creature, traced large enough to hold a room."

About Art on Mirror – Red

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 red 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 red. 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 red 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.

Red is the colour of blood, of fire and of everything we cannot stay calm about. 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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