{"product_id":"a-mask-kept-from-breath","title":"A Mask Kept From Breath","description":"\u003cp\u003eA hand rises from the dark and closes over a diver's mask, the way a mask closes over a breath before it is held back. Nothing behind the glass looks out. Where a face and a reflection should sit, the surface stays shut, and the whole gesture becomes about withholding rather than seeing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe work keeps only what carries that gesture: the shape of the fingers, the curve of the mask, the printed pattern at the wrists, all drawn as a field of fine scratches. Everything else, skin tone, expression, the room behind the hand, is let go into the deep blue that fills the rest of the piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlue carries the meaning here. It is the colour of held breath and closed water, of a distance kept between the world and whatever is being protected underneath that mask. It cools the image, the way a mask cools a face it seals off from air.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo paint. No print. No ink. The image is formed by controlled scratches set into the surface of deep blue coloured mirror glass, not applied onto it. The marks are always present, in daylight as in darkness. Light does not create the image, it sharpens it, deepening the contrast where the scratches catch and shine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAround the hand and the mask, the coloured mirror glass keeps doing its other job: it reflects the room, and with it, the person standing in front of the work. Study the mask too long and your own face starts to gather in that same blue field, close to where the mask's would be, so that looking at the piece becomes a small trade of one held breath for another.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis work continues the Art on Mirror series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which scratched imagery is set into coloured mirror glass and the viewer becomes part of the work. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure, and where the mirror turns looking into taking part.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A mask kept from breath, and a face kept from the mirror.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003egezien: In the finished work a raised hand presses a rounded, goggle eyed mask against a dark blue mirrored surface, its round lenses, ribbed filter and patterned cuffs traced in fine glowing white lines. Everything outside those scratched contours, including where a face or reflection would sit behind the mask's black lenses, stays deep untouched blue.\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":59580270117189,"sku":null,"price":4500.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0904\/0724\/0005\/files\/A_Mask_Kept_From_Breath_thumbnail.jpg?v=1791175433","url":"https:\/\/tdfineartstudio.com\/products\/a-mask-kept-from-breath","provider":"TD Fine Art Studio","version":"1.0","type":"link"}