A polar bear has pulled up a deck chair on the one surface still left to it, sunglasses on, paws crossed, utterly unbothered. A Recline Scratched Into Light holds that ease at its most uncomfortable moment, the instant before anyone thinks to ask what, exactly, he is sunbathing on. The acrylic glass gives the bear almost everything. His fur, the striped cushion beneath him, the crust of ice under the chair's legs, all of it is formed from a field of individual marks worked directly into the surface, so the whole reclining shape gathers light the way a body gathers warmth on holiday. One hard source falls from above, and he answers it fully, pale and glowing against a black that takes everything else away. What stays dark is the frame holding the scene together: the thin lines of the chair, the pool of shadow beneath it, the sunglasses shielding his eyes from a sun that, out here, is the last thing he should want to see. Even his comfort has an edge, a relaxed body resting on ground that is, by its very nature, already leaving. No paint. No print. No ink. The scratches that hold this moment are always there, present whether or not a light is pointed at them. Light does not create the image, it sharpens it, and the work reads differently depending on where you stand, without the bear or his small floating island ever losing shape. There is a quiet joke here, and under it something less comfortable: how easily a crisis can be dressed as a holiday, how naturally we relax into scenes that should alarm us, how often the viewer, buyer, voter, bystander alike, chooses the chair over the question. A Recline Scratched Into Light belongs to In Plain Sight, a series within Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, and in which that same damage becomes a way of asking how calmly we can rest on ground we are already losing. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure, and where a bear in sunglasses can say more about denial than any headline manages to. "The chair stays level. The ice does not." About Art with Scratch Art with Scratch is a body of work in which the image is not drawn, but released. Carved line by line into a deep black surface, each work emerges through countless precise scratches that catch the light and bring form out of darkness. From a distance, the image appears almost photographic. Powerful, recognisable and full of presence. Yet up close, the work dissolves into a dense field of individual marks. Fine, fragile and almost weightless. What seemed solid reveals itself as a delicate web of lines, each one a deliberate gesture, each one essential to the whole. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it. The black surface absorbs, while the scratched lines reflect. As light shifts across the surface, the image breathes. From one angle the figure stands clear and defined. From another it softens and settles back toward the darkness from which it came, without ever disappearing. Under a focused spotlight, the contrast deepens and the image takes on a sculptural, almost luminous quality. What makes this medium so compelling is its quiet tension. The act of scratching is direct and irreversible. Every line is a decision that cannot be undone. Yet the result is not harsh. It is intimate, atmospheric and alive with movement. Hardness becomes softness. Destruction becomes creation. Absence becomes presence. In works such as this portrait, the figure is never fully fixed. Through the interplay of line, light and shadow, the image shifts with perspective and atmosphere. At certain moments, the subject seems to step forward out of the black. At others, it settles back into stillness. It is within that movement, between sharpness and calm, that the work comes alive. Like all materials touched by time, the surface carries its own quiet life. Each scratch holds a moment, a breath, a gesture. Together they form not just an image, but a presence, one that continues to reveal itself with every change of light. 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. This listing contains AI-generated visualisations. Please refer to the original photographs to assess the actual condition of the object.