Tijs Dragtsma (1992) - Rings Around the Last Letter

A wheel is built from circles, and here only the circles survive. The rim's edge returns as a broken ring of light, a tyre's shoulder catches along one curved seam, and at the very centre two letters sit inside a smaller ring of their own, the last stop before the hub disappears into black. Rings Around the Last Letter reduces a Rolls-Royce wheel to exactly that, rings within rings, closing in on the one that holds a name. Around that centre, the spokes do not survive as spokes. They return as fragments, a scatter of bright marks and small diamonds of light that imply rotation more than they describe it, as if the wheel had been caught mid turn and only the brightest instants of its motion had stayed behind. Between them, the black does most of the work, holding the fragments apart so the eye has to complete the wheel that the image only gestures toward. No paint. No print. No ink. The entire image is scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, a field of individual marks that sit as light on deep black. The image is always present, it does not wait for a lamp to find it. Light does not create the image, it sharpens it, under direct light the scratches catch and reflect, the contrast deepens, and the rings and the lettering lift further out of the void around them. It reads differently from different angles, without ever losing the image. At the centre, two interlocked letters, R and R, for Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, a signature pressed onto the wheel long after it had already become a signature for something larger than the two men who first wrote it. The badge is said to have changed from red to black in 1933, the year Henry Royce died, a small act of mourning worn ever since on every car that carries the mark. This is an independent artwork by Tijs Dragtsma, not made, licensed or endorsed by Rolls-Royce. Rings Around the Last Letter belongs to Objects of Desire, 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 why a mark meant to say who built the thing becomes, a century later, a mark of who owns it. A wheel turns and is rarely looked at closely, yet the house still placed its full name there, twice interlocked, as if even the part that meets the road had to announce who it belonged to. Which sign would you still want, if the only place left to put it was somewhere nobody would ever think to look. "A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure." 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.

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