Blane De St. Croix
Blane De St. Croix
Workspace Program Resident 2015
“I was honored to receive a Dieu Donné Workspace Program Residency, which was awarded at an important time in my studio practice. Cast paper is an exciting new medium for me and seems to be an extraordinary match to my existing art practice. The possibilities presented by the material have greatly enhanced my creative process. Paper pulp has truly transformed my work.
I am extremely grateful to my studio collaborator, expert papermaker Lisa Switalski, and the entire staff at Dieu Donné. They worked tirelessly to provide a perfect work studio environment for the production of my projects. I would also like to thank my wife Diana Shpungin for invaluable creative insight and interns from both my studio and Dieu Donné for all their efforts on the project.” —Blane De St. Croix, 2015
Blane De St. Croix’s research-based practice incorporates on-the-ground site visits, aerial fly-overs, photographic documentation, interviews, internet mining, and satellite imagery to create art that investigates local and international social, political, environmental, and cultural climate challenges. He created two distinct bodies of work while in residence at Dieu Donné that emulate natural phenomena of snow and lava using processes innate to pulp and papermaking.
The two series of low-relief modular wall works are based on the artist’s research trips to the Arctic Circle and the Hawaiian shield volcano of Kilauea, respectively. Landscapes based on images and memory were re-created with foam – a light, malleable, and waterproof material – to use as an armature for sheets of cotton pulp in black made with carbon pigment and natural white to emulate lava and snow.
De St. Croix and his studio collaborator Lisa Switalski pulled large sheets of paper and almost immediately laid them over the armatures. Thick sheets of paper are usually left to drain and be pressed, as the strength of the sheet depends on careful timing of its transfer off the screen. Instead, the supersaturated sheets lost the integrity of a regular sheet of paper and collapsed around the armature as the pulp peeled off of the paper screen, the movement emulating nature. In another twist on regular paper making, the works were air-dried quickly, rather than a slow restrained process. This intentional loosening of control allowed more serendipity in the resulting pieces, leading to rich surface textures and tears, allowing the natural state change of the material to direct the final work, from wet to dry.
In the Studio
About the Artist
Blane De St. Croix (b. Boston, Massachusetts) received his MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art. De St. Croix currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Bloomington, IN. He is represented by Fredericks & Freiser.
Blane De St. Croix’s work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally, in solo and group shows at venues including spring 2020 at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Fredericks & Freiser, New York, NY; Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; The Land Art Biennial, The Mongolian National Art Gallery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; The Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA; The Kathmandu International Triennial, Nepal Art Council, Kathmandu, Nepal; Värmlands Museum, Karlstad, Sweden; New York University Galleries, New York, NY; The Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Future Arts Research, (F.A.R.), Phoenix, AZ; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO; Gasworks Gallery, London, England; Europos Parkas Sculpture Park, Vilniaus, Lithuania; Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Art In Embassies Program of the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY; Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY; Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL; The Asia Society, Houston, TX; The Virginia Commonwealth University Anderson Gallery, Richmond, VA; and The Sheila Johnson Design Center, Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY. Additionally, his work is included in both institutional and private collections in the United States and abroad.
De St. Croix has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards. Select awards include: The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; The Lee Krasner Lifetime of Artistic Achievement Award; The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship for Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design; The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors; The Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant; The Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship; The West Collection Prize; The MassArt Alumni Award for Outstanding Creative Accomplishment; and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture.
De St. Croix’s many notable international and national fellowship and artist residencies include: The CEC ArtsLink Residency, St Petersburg, Russia, New York, NY; The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Award Space Program, Brooklyn, NY; an Art Omi Artist Residency, Ghent, NY; Smack Mellon Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; residencies at John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Foundry Artist Residency, Wisconsin; Gasworks Artist Studio Residency, Triangle Arts Trust, London; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE; Tyrone Gutherie Center, Ireland; Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; Dieu Donne Workspace Residency, New York, NY; Special Editions Residency, Lower East Side Printshop, New York, NY; The Arctic Circle Residency; and multiple MacDowell Colony Fellowships, Peterborough, NH. De St. Croix’s work has been written about in publications including New York Magazine, The New York Times, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Artnet, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, Art Daily, ABC News, New Art Examiner, and The Miami Herald. (Source: Artist’s website)
For more information, please visit their website: https://blanedestcroix.com/