A tall soda glass rises out of the dark, its scoop of cream lifted like a small flame caught mid flicker. The straw leans in at an angle, catching a single beam of light, and for a moment the whole composition reads as a private, theatrical pause, a treat suspended between wanting and having. Nothing here is printed or painted. The image is scratched into the surface of deep red coloured mirror glass, formed by removal rather than addition, a field of individual marks pulled from the material until the glass itself starts to glow with the shape of the glass and its cream. Red carries the appetite in this piece, the warmth of something sweet held just out of reach, embers rather than ice. Coarse, comic book dots gather along the curve of the glass and the shadow it throws, echoing the halftone language of old romance and war panels, while the rest of the scene is left to the surrounding red, untouched and dark. The contrast is the story, a single lit object in a room that otherwise gives nothing away. Because this is coloured mirror glass, the room keeps entering the piece. Walls, light fixtures, whoever is standing in front of it, all of it shows up faintly around and between the scratches, so the viewer becomes part of the composition rather than someone looking at it from outside. Light does not create this image. It sharpens it. The scoop and its straw are always present in the surface, and under a directed light the contrast deepens and the scratches catch and hold their shine, while only the reflection around them shifts with the room. Seen from across a room the glass reads as one monumental, glowing shape. Move closer and it dissolves into a field of fine scratches, each one small and exact, building the same image out of nothing but controlled surface damage. This piece 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 pleasure, held in light, before it melts." 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.