{"product_id":"a-grip-on-the-edge-of-dark","title":"A Grip on the Edge of Dark","description":"\u003cp\u003eA Grip on the Edge of Dark gives you the top of a skull, two eyes wide open, and a set of fingertips hooked over a ledge the picture never actually shows you. Everything below that line, the body, the floor, the way down, has been left to the dark. What remains is the instant just before someone climbs in or climbs out, held there by a grip that refuses to loosen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt belongs to Escape Artists, where the edge of the work has stopped behaving like a frame and started behaving like a wall. Here the lower border of the picture becomes the one surface worth holding onto, not a window to look through but a ledge to hang from, with the whole black square above it standing in for the room still to be reached, or the room already left behind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo paint. No print. No ink. The scalp, the brow, the eyes and the fingers pressed white at the knuckle are shaped from a field of fine scratches worked into the surface of the acrylic glass, present at every hour of the day. Direct light does not conjure the picture out of nothing, it sharpens what was already there, deepening the contrast between the little that is held onto and the much larger dark around it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA Grip on the Edge of Dark belongs to Escape Artists, 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 which edge each of us is quietly holding onto.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMost of the picture is void by choice. Two eyes and a row of fingers on either side are doing all the work, and they are doing it at the very limit of the frame, close enough to the bottom that a slightly later moment might show nothing at all. The wit is dry, a head this persistent for a grip this small, and underneath it sits the plainer feeling: the effort spent just to stay visible, to keep hold of the one ledge on offer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Some of us just want somewhere to put our hands.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore about the artist, process and materials can be found on the About page.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eQuestions about this work, availability or shipping can be sent through the contact page.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TD Fine Art Studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":60027231568197,"sku":null,"price":4500.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0904\/0724\/0005\/files\/A_Grip_on_the_Edge_of_Dark_thumbnail.jpg?v=1793570848","url":"https:\/\/tdfineartstudio.com\/products\/a-grip-on-the-edge-of-dark","provider":"TD Fine Art Studio","version":"1.0","type":"link"}