Early works Early in his career De St. Croix was interested in ecology, nature, landscape and perception. In works like
Excavation (1994) and Bed of Wicker, Bed of Straw, Bed of Clay (1995) De St. Croix brought outdoor environments indoors, and initiated his work with sculptural landscape. De St. Croix began to sculpt in miniature after being employed to build scale model theater sets, which brought him to experiment with scale in his own work.
Landscape Section: Border: North/South Korea (2008) De St. Croix's depopulated small-scale model of the topography and fence-architecture of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea observes the success of the structure and barrier while reflecting on the constructed and artificial nature of borders.
Mountain Strip (2009) Rooted in research done in West Virginia where he met the anti-mining environmental activist
Larry Gibson, the monumental sculptural installation Mountain Strip, over forty feet long and twenty-two feet high, reconstructed topography of a section of the strip-mined Kayford Mountain Ridge top in West Virginia.
Broken Landscape II (2010) De St. Croix's 80 ft long sculpture Broken Landscape II depicts a section of the U.S.-Mexico border in
Eagle Pass, Texas. The art critic
Jerry Saltz wrote that "Lovingly detailed with hills, rocks, trees, and (of course) fencing, it expresses the desolation, desperation, and absurdity of trying to wall off one country from another. It makes both the sculpture and the policy debates seem that much more diabolical and impossible."
Mountain Views (2011) Mountain Views is a monumental landscape sculpture depicting an extinct mountain range that was installed in New York City's
Socrates Sculpture Park. Installed in 2011, the sculpture obstructed the New York City skyline, with the mountains acting as memorials to their own destruction caused by mountain top removal coal mining, and gesturing to a major source of energy for the city.
Nomadic Landscape (2012) The sculpture Nomadic Landscape depicts the Mongolian Gobi Desert and was created in situ in 2012. The sculpture uses its shipping crate as a sculptural pedestal and natural materials collected from the Gobi desert.
Floating Fire (2014) The suspended sculpture Floating Fire depicts fragmented scenes of the Florida
Everglades reserve in the aftermath of encroachment and forest fires.
Pyramiden/Permafrost (2014) The sculpture Pyramiden / Permafrost was created after a research trip to the
Svalbard Archipelago and takes its name from the abandoned soviet settlement of
Pyramiden, a utopian arctic coal mining community founded in 1927 and abandoned in 1998. The sculpture depicts the iconic, eponymous mountain peak overlooking the town. One side of the sculpture is a pristine representation of the snow-covered peak, the other side exposes a cross section of the mountain's dark interior and the deep permafrost of the arctic landscape, recalling a dystopian underside of the failed community and ideology.
Dead Ice (2014) The sculpture Dead Ice was created after De St. Croix’ research trip to the Svalbard Archipelago in the Arctic Circle in 2013. The monumental sculpture features two distinct sides that divide the space in two, one human and one natural, with the sculpture itself also acting as a border between the two created spaces.
Moving Landscape II (2020) Moving Landscape II is part of the Gem State exhibition at the Sun Valley Museum of Art where De St. Croix participated in a residency in the fall of 2019. Inspired by the diversity of geological formations he encountered and the history of Sun Valley as a
Union Pacific destination, De St. Croix has created an installation for the exhibition—a model Union Pacific train pulling cars that carry small sculptural models of the sites that De St. Croix visited during the residency.
Hollow Ground (2020) In 2019, De St. Croix visited
Utqiagvik, Alaska, to observe the dissolving permafrost as a result of climate change. Using techniques including model-making, theater, and special effects, De St. Croix combines recycled styrofoam with eco-resins and other earth-friendly materials to model the surface of Hollow Ground. De St. Croix uses first hand experiences of the landscape to give viewers a glimpse into the future. This sculpture was featured in Blane De St. Croix's solo exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, 2020 - 2021.
Alchemist Triptych (2020) Alchemist Triptych is a sculpture that represents mineral mines extracted from the earth in hanging and tapered concentric rings. Each mineral mine has a corresponding hole in the floor which depicts the healing ground in the face of extraction. This sculpture was featured in Blane De St. Croix's solo exhibition at the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, 2020 - 2021. This relief sculpture was featured in Blane De St. Croix's solo exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, 2020 - 2021.
How to Move a Landscape (2020) The film How to Move a Landscape is a collaboration between
Tony Gerber and Blane De St. Croix which follows De St. Croix's trip to Utqiagvik, Alaska in 2019. The documentary style film is about the De St. Croix's artistic process and work. Preliminary footage from the film was featured in Blane De St. Croix's solo exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, 2020 - 2021. ==References==