Poseidon in the Blue

Poseidon in the Blue brings the sea god back from myth into a space that is also a mirror. His head floats alone against a deep blue ground, crowned with shells and framed by a beard that moves like current, built entirely from a field of fine scratches cut into coloured mirror glass.

The image exists because of what has been taken away. Every strand of hair, every fold of the beard, every plane of the god's weathered face is formed where the surface has been opened and left to catch the light, while the untouched glass around it holds the dark, undisturbed blue of open water.

Blue is not decoration here. It is the colour of Poseidon's own element, the sea that gave him his power and his temper, and it carries that weight through the whole work, surrounding the god the way water surrounds everything he rules.

Because the image sits in the surface of the mirror glass, the room you stand in becomes part of it. Walls, light fixtures and your own reflection slip into the blue around Poseidon's face, so the work completes itself a little differently in every space it hangs.

The scratches are present whether the room is bright or dim, they do not need to be switched on to exist. Light does not create this image. It sharpens it, deepening the contrast and giving the god's expression more weight as the light in the room shifts, while the picture itself never changes.

Seen from across a room, Poseidon's face reads as a single monumental presence. Close up, that same face opens into a field of individual marks, controlled surface damage that only resolves into a king of the sea once you step back and let your eye do the work.

Poseidon 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. A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure, and where the mirror turns looking into taking part.

"The sea does not ask to be seen. It asks to be entered."

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

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