Threshold by Santie Cronje
Threshold is a visual passage, a meeting point between past and present, memory and experience. Each work forms a dialogue across chapters of Cronje’s practice, inviting the viewer to move through veiled layers, subtle gestures, and emotional resonance. This exhibition explores the threshold between what is held and what is revealed, between narrative and abstraction, and between the personal and the universal.
Artist Statement
For Santie Cronje, Threshold is both a reflection and a continuation of her journey. The exhibition brings together early narrative works, mini print proofs, hybrids, reverse glass pieces, and original abstracts, allowing past and present to converse. Through layered mark-making, veiled interventions, and tactile surfaces, Santie examines the emotional and visual threads that connect her chapters, celebrating memory, intuition, and the strength of her creative voice.
Artist Bio
Santie Cronje is a Waikato-based artist and gallery director whose practice has evolved through two distinct stylistic phases: early illustrative narrative works shaped by migration and sailing from South Africa, and later painterly landscapes reflecting her settled life in New Zealand. Since 2008, she has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows, mentored emerging artists, curated exhibitions, and guided collectors in living with original art across genres. Her work is characterised by poetic visual storytelling, layered textures, and an ongoing exploration of memory, emotion, and place.
Signature Works
Original acrylics on custom wood, framed in solid timber, representing key Threshold works. These pieces carry the weight of experience, memory, and reflection, forming the anchor of the exhibition.
Hybrid & One-offs
Unique one-off works where past and present converge — prints become painted interventions, revealing narrative layers and bridging memory with Threshold’s new visual language.
Mini Original
Small original abstracts carrying texture, presence, and the essence of Santie’s larger works. These condensed Threshold originals explore movement, layering, and reflective mark-making, responding to an earlier piece, High Tea.
MINI PRINT PROOF SET
– I Saw Her by the Apple Tree
A connected set of the first mini print proof, printed in 2011, forming a quiet narrative of observation and journey. Each frame tells part of the story, designed to be experienced together.
REVERSE GLASS PIECES (All One-Offs)
Small, vibrant paintings on reverse glass responding to early chapters and Threshold originals. Layers and colour interplay, create depth, dialogue, and intimacy in miniature form.
MINI PRINT PROOFS & EARLY CHAPTERS (All One-Offs)
Accessible windows into Santie’s formative visual chapters. Each one-off mini print proof tells a small story of memory, place, and early exploration — intimate fragments of her evolving practice.
