A Reach Held in Green

A Reach Held in Green

She stands on the balls of her feet, her whole body drawn upward into one long line, reaching past her own height toward a single apple caught on a branch above her. A slender snake hangs from that same branch, watching her the way only something older than her ever could. Her hair stays unlit, a dark fall against the void, while her raised arm, her shoulder blades and the curve of her hip emerge as if the darkness had just released them.

The work is shaped in deep green coloured mirror glass, and the green is not decoration. It is the colour of the garden she is standing in before the reach is finished, the colour of leaf and branch and everything still growing, still whole. Her figure is cut from that green as a field of fine scratches, present rather than painted, closer to something uncovered than something made.

No paint, no print, no ink. The image exists because the surface was taken away in exactly the places where light needed to gather, leaving the rest in a darkness that was never touched. From across the room she reads as a single gesture, one arm raised into stillness. Up close, that gesture opens into a field of individual marks, each one holding its own sliver of light.

The image is always there, with or without a spotlight. Light does not create her, it sharpens her: under direct light the contrast deepens, the scratches catch and hold their shine, and she comes forward from the glass with more weight. Turn away, dim the room, and she remains exactly where she was, patient as the moment just before a choice.

Around her, the coloured mirror keeps doing its own work. The gallery wall, the window, the person standing in front of it, all of it gathers in the green surrounding her outstretched arm, so that whoever is looking becomes part of the same darkness she is reaching out of. The snake sees her. The glass makes sure you are seen too.

This piece 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.

"Some reaches are remembered less for what was taken than for the light they left behind."

More about the artist, process and materials can be found on the About page.

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