Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Trump Toasts the Burning Globe

Trump Toasts the Burning Globe opens on a ritual everyone recognises: two glasses raised, a silent nod, the small ceremony that seals a deal before a word is said. Here the glasses are filled not with champagne but with crude oil, its surface so smooth it could pass for glamour, and on each stirring stick, where a cocktail would carry an olive or a twist of lemon, a tiny globe burns instead. In the finished work almost nothing is given for free. The two profiles, instantly recognisable, survive as fields of fine scratches catching the light along the brow, the set of the jaw, the fall of the hair, while the suits around them fall back into the black and are mostly let go. What stays sharp is what the piece chooses to keep sharp: the faces, the raised glasses, the small spinning globes, the parts that carry the joke and the warning in equal measure. Between the two men the glasses hold the brightest passage in the whole piece, a crossing of scratched light where the oil seems to glow from inside the acrylic glass itself. It is a toast staged like a sacrament, lit from above as if it deserved reverence, and that is exactly the discomfort the image is built on. The globe on a stick is the oldest trick of satire: shrink the thing that should be unbearably large until it fits in a glass, until it can be lifted, sipped past, swallowed without much thought. Two men who steer a great deal of what happens to that globe are shown treating it like garnish, a flourish to a drink rather than the one thing both of them are meant to protect. Trump Toasts the Burning Globe belongs to Heads of State, 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 turning a single moment of power into an image that needs no caption to be understood. No paint. No print. No ink. The image is scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, a field of individual marks that the eye reassembles into two faces and a drink no one should be proud of. The image is always present, with or without direct light. Light does not create it, it sharpens it: under a focused source the oil in the glasses deepens and the globes seem to catch fire again, and the piece reads differently depending on where you stand without ever losing its shape. Seen from across the room it reads as a single dark gesture, two heads and a shared drink. Up close it turns into something closer to a verdict, a field of scratches that asks what exactly is being celebrated, and by whom, while the globe keeps burning between them. "Cheers," it seems to say, "to whatever is left." 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.

Estimación:€3,500

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