One Breath Away

One Breath Away is a contemporary artwork about endurance, threshold and the fragile moment before arrival.

The figure stands in deep shadow. Behind it, only darkness. Ahead, a thin vertical line of light, close enough to almost touch. The body is exhausted. But it has not fallen. That tension is everything.

No paint. No print. No ink. The image emerges through controlled surface damage on acrylic glass. Every scratch catches light from a different angle, pulling the figure out of the darkness and then letting it dissolve again as the viewer moves. What was visible becomes shadow. What was shadow becomes form. The image lives in that shift.

From across the room, the work reads as monumental. A solitary presence against an infinite dark. Up close, the surface reveals itself as a field of controlled scratches, each one carrying a fragment of the whole. The figure only exists because of the marks. It could not exist without them.

The subject runs deeper than exhaustion. This is about the moment just before. The last step. The breath held before crossing. The line of light in this work is not a reward. It is a reminder that arrival is still possible, even when the body has already given almost everything.

One Breath Away 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.

"The light was always there. You just had to stay standing long enough to reach it."

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.