Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Liberty in the Blue

She rises out of a field of blue, crown first, then the raised arm and the torch, the profile of a face that most people in the world already carry somewhere in memory. Liberty in the Blue does not copy that memory. It rebuilds it through removal.

No paint, no print, no ink. Every spike of the crown, every fold in the robe, every plane of the face is shaped from a field of controlled scratches cut into the surface itself, not placed onto it. Up close the monument dissolves into that field of fine marks, step back and the whole figure gathers itself again into one calm, unmistakable head raised toward the light.

The colour is not a background choice. Blue is the colour of harbour water and open sky, the colour a torch has to be lifted against to mean anything at all, and here it carries the whole image, deep and constant, the ground every mark is drawn from.

Look closer and the room joins the work. The gallery around you, its walls, its light, is caught and returned in the coloured mirror glass, so your own reflection settles in beside her raised arm and the spikes of her crown. You are not only looking at Liberty. You are standing inside the same blue she does.

The image is always there, with or without direct light. What changes is only the reflection moving across the surface, under a stronger light the scratches catch and the contrast deepens, the crown sharpens, the shadow side of the face gains weight. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it.

Liberty in the Blue 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.

"Freedom, like light, is not given. It has to be uncovered."

About Art on Mirror – Blue

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 blue 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 blue. 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 blue 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.

Blue is the colour of night, of deep water and of quiet distance. 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.