A single face rises out of the deep red, half held in shadow, half caught in a field of fine scratches that catch the light like a breath drawn in. Down the brow and cheek run long, deliberate lines, drips frozen mid fall, the visual echo of a single monumental brushstroke turned into something closer to a wound than a picture. This is Tears Traced in Red. Nothing here is added. The face, the falling lines, the scattered marks across the plate, all of it exists because material was taken away rather than laid down. A field of individual marks was worked into coloured mirror glass, and where the surface was left untouched, it stays dark and closed, a true black that gives the eyes and the hairline their weight against the glow. Red is not a background choice, it is the subject's own colour. It carries the sting of tears that will not stay clear, the flush of a feeling too large to hold quietly, the pulse just under the skin. Across this particular shade of red, sorrow reads less like an event and more like a climate the face has always lived in. The image does not need light to exist. It is always there, present in the surface whether the room is lit softly or dramatically. What light changes is depth, not presence, under a sharper angle the scratches gather more shine and the contrast between the glowing skin and the black hollows around the eyes grows stronger. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it. Around the face, and in the untouched red between the marks, the room itself appears. Whoever stands close is folded into that reflection, drawn into the same field of red that holds the figure, so the viewer is no longer just looking at grief but standing inside its colour. Tears 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. "Some tears do not fall, they stay traced in the surface, waiting to be seen." 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.