Hepburn and the Fawn's Hush

Audrey Hepburn looks out from the dark with the stillness she was always known for, a fawn pressed close against her neck. In this work almost nothing is given directly. The chignon, the bare shoulder, the famous eyes and the soft muzzle of the young deer surface only where the surface itself has been opened, a field of fine scratches that catches the light and holds her face together out of pure brightness against an otherwise untouched black.

No paint. No print. No ink. The image is scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, built through removal rather than addition, so that what we read as her face is really a field of individual marks, each one letting a little more light through, together forming a likeness that feels drawn in light itself.

The image is always present, under any light, from any angle. But light does not create it, it sharpens it. Under direct light the scratches catch and reflect, the contrast deepens, the chignon gains weight and the fawn's fur seems to soften further into hers. Move around the piece and it reads differently from one angle to the next, without ever losing the image or returning to blankness.

There is a quiet tenderness built into this pairing, one of the most photographed faces of the twentieth century, caught not performing for the camera but simply holding something small and trusting against her. The fawn does not know who she is. It only knows the warmth of her neck. That unguarded moment, stripped of glamour, is what the piece keeps, and what the removal of material lets emerge.

From across a room the portrait reads as calm and whole, almost photographic in its hush. Step closer and that certainty dissolves into a field of individual scratches, each one too small to carry meaning alone, together forming a face that seems to hold still just long enough to be seen.

This piece continues the Art with Scratch series by Tijs Dragtsma, in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure.

"Some faces need no colour. Only light, and what has been taken away to find it."

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

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