Liberty in the Blue

She rises out of a field of blue, crown first, then the raised arm and the torch, the profile of a face that most people in the world already carry somewhere in memory. Liberty in the Blue does not copy that memory. It rebuilds it through removal.

No paint, no print, no ink. Every spike of the crown, every fold in the robe, every plane of the face is shaped from a field of controlled scratches cut into the surface itself, not placed onto it. Up close the monument dissolves into that field of fine marks, step back and the whole figure gathers itself again into one calm, unmistakable head raised toward the light.

The colour is not a background choice. Blue is the colour of harbour water and open sky, the colour a torch has to be lifted against to mean anything at all, and here it carries the whole image, deep and constant, the ground every mark is drawn from.

Look closer and the room joins the work. The gallery around you, its walls, its light, is caught and returned in the coloured mirror glass, so your own reflection settles in beside her raised arm and the spikes of her crown. You are not only looking at Liberty. You are standing inside the same blue she does.

The image is always there, with or without direct light. What changes is only the reflection moving across the surface, under a stronger light the scratches catch and the contrast deepens, the crown sharpens, the shadow side of the face gains weight. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it.

Liberty in the Blue 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. This work is unique.

"Freedom, like light, is not given. It has to be uncovered."

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

Questions about this work, availability or shipping can be sent through the contact page.