BLANE DE ST. CROIX: MOUNTAIN STRIP
Image: Blane De St. Croix, Mountain Strip, mixed media / ©Blaine De St. Croix
PRESS RELEASE / FALL 2009-WINTER 2010
For the exhibition, De St. Croix quite literally builds a mountain upside down, referring to the strip mining process of mountain top removal and filling of the valleys, definitively flatting the land and stripping it of all its resources and sustainability. The massive sculpture, a monumental miniaturized landscape, dynamically cuts through the exterior exhibition space spilling into the interior gallery, while painstakingly reconstructing the topography of a selected section of the Kayford Mountain Ridge top in West Virginia as both a monument and memorial to the land. The installation runs over forty feet in length and towers above the exterior walls as it climbs up twenty-two feet high. Additionally, in the interior space numerous detailed ink drawings are on view in support of the project.