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.
About Art With Nails
Art with Nails is a body of work in which image emerges through material, light, shadow and tension.
Each artwork is constructed from individually placed nails in steel or brass, set into matte acrylic glass with precision and intent. Yet the final image is never defined by material alone. It is completed by light. By shadow. By reflection. By the changing atmosphere around it.
In the black steel works on white acrylic glass, the composition gains depth through shadow play. As light moves across the surface, the nails project rhythm, contrast and sculptural presence. In the brass works on black acrylic glass, another character appears. Under the right light, the brass catches the sun and releases a warm golden glow, giving the work a quieter and more intimate intensity.
What makes this medium so compelling is its tension. Steel and brass are raw, powerful and industrial materials. Matte acrylic glass is delicate, refined and seemingly still. Together, they create a fragile balance between hardness and softness, force and elegance.
In works such as my reinterpretation of The Creation of Adam, the image is never fully fixed. Through its three dimensional structure, the relationship between the forms shifts with perspective, light and shadow. From one angle, the hands seem to move towards one another. At certain moments of the day, when the light falls just right, they appear to touch. Not in material, but in shadow. It is within that fleeting moment that the work comes alive.
Materials such as brass and steel may also evolve subtly over time through oxidation, allowing the artwork to shift in character over the years. In that sense, each piece carries not only an image, but an ongoing relationship with light, material and time.
About Art With Void
Art with Void is a body of work in which the image is not built through addition. but revealed through absence.
From a distance. the image is unmistakable. Strong. clear and immediately present. Yet up close. the work transforms. The viewer discovers a surface composed of precisely carved micro voids in high quality acrylic glass. What seemed whole and still from afar becomes detailed. delicate and deeply structured.
Light is essential to the work. In daylight. reflections shift and the image changes subtly with its environment. In darkness. under a focused spotlight. the acrylic glass comes fully alive. Depth intensifies. reflections sharpen. and the image takes on an almost magical presence.
This interplay between distance and proximity. image and structure. stillness and transformation lies at the heart of Art with Void. It is a visual language built on reduction. yet rich in atmosphere. precision and presence.
Whats Next
Within TD Fine Art Studio, new artistic languages are constantly being explored.
Currently in development are Art with Shift and Art with Shadow.
Art with Shift introduces subtle colour into the visual language of the studio, adding a new layer of depth, atmosphere and perception.
Art with Shadow moves toward an extremely minimal visual language, in which form is defined almost entirely through shadow. Reduced to its essence. Quiet. Precise. Powerful.