Five columns stand in a line, each one catching light along its fluted length until the stone itself seems to glow. Between them the eye expects only gaps, dark wedges of nothing, the ordinary shadow a colonnade throws against a wall. Look again and those gaps are not empty. Three figures stand there, upright and still, exactly where the architecture should have left only air. The switch is quiet but complete. Follow the columns and the work reads as a study in classical order, rhythm, repetition, light falling the same way down each shaft. Follow the negative space instead and the same image becomes a row of silent witnesses, waiting between the stone, present only because the architecture around them refuses to fill in their shape. Both readings hold. Neither cancels the other. This is the old trick of figure and ground, played here with a cinematic weight. The columns do not merely frame the figures, they produce them, in the way a held breath produces a shape out of what is left unsaid. Monumental from a distance, the scene resolves at close range into something more intimate and more uneasy, three bodies caught in the act of simply standing, unnamed and unmoving. No paint. No print. No ink. The glow of each column is a field of fine scratches opened into the acrylic glass, while the untouched black holds the figures as pure, unscratched dark. The image is always present, in full room light and in shadow alike. Light does not create it. It sharpens it, so the contrast deepens under a lamp and settles into something calmer in soft daylight, the columns and the standing shapes between them never leaving. Figures Between the Columns belongs to Look Twice, 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 catching the eye at the instant it switches between two readings of the same quiet scene. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure. Stand close and count the columns. Step back and count the people. This work is unique. "Between what stands and what is only left standing." 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.