I am Cornè Theron, a neo-optical contemporary artist whose practice explores perception, memory, and the quiet forces that shape who we become. My work is concerned less with fixed identities than with the subtle, often unseen ways experience, inheritance, and environment form our ways of seeing and being.

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Water is central to my practice — not only as subject, but as metaphor and archive. It reflects, distorts, preserves, and erases, moving between clarity and obscurity. Through water, I explore the thresholds between conscious and subconscious states, and the fragile, interconnected ecosystems — social, emotional, and physical — in which we exist.

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Recent bodies of work engage more closely with matrilineal transmission and what I think of as "the mothers we inherit": the gestures, sensitivities, and ways of attending to the world that pass quietly from one generation to the next. My research considers resilience, memory, and reconstruction within displaced and postcolonial contexts, where identity is continually negotiated rather than resolved.

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While living on a farm in South Africa, and prior to relocating to France in 2019 on a talent visa, I began working with reclaimed glass from old doors as a visual filter. This process allowed me to fragment and pixellate images, introducing optical interference that blurs the boundary between reality and perception. Today, I continue this exploration in France, in dialogue with regions shaped by a rich history of glassmaking.

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The concept of surface tension — the balance between cohesion and fragility — remains a guiding principle in my work. It reflects the delicate interdependence of human relationships and environments, and the ways meaning, memory, and connection are held just beneath the surface.