Christine Cronjé - On Breath and Ash

Masters Graduate Shows

The Masters in Fine Arts programme is a stretch of time in which graduates cut their teeth through a rigorous interrogation of their art practices within a two-year dedication to their projects. The process, although supervised, is a predominantly self-motivated endeavour, and exemplifies the highest standard of practice at the Michaelis School of Fine Art.

Christine Cronje
On Breath And Ash

 

In an exhibition of drawings, small-scale sculptures and video works titled On breath and ash, Cronjé focuses on the transience of consciously ‘being’ through the framework of the body. The concept of ‘being’ is considered in relation to three threads: ‘being’ as breath (pneuma), ‘being’ as form (embodied experience) and ‘being’ as time (elusive present state of ‘being’).

References to breath and the act of breathing surface throughout the exhibition as traces of the living breathing body. Through processes of revealing and recording, such as filming the condensation of her breath or repetitively drawing lines on the rhythm of her breathing, the artist attempts to materialise breath and, by implication, ‘being’.  Within the exhibition, ash becomes representative of the final trace of the material body and through a mediation between breath and ash, Cronjé explores the thresholds between inhalation/exhalation, material/immaterial, form/formlessness, presence/absence, and life/death.