UNIVERSITY NEWS - JUNE 2003

MEDIA CONTACT: Stacia Smith
561/297-2971; ssmith@fau.edu

FAU Art Professor Receives Award for Excellence in Art

BOCA RATON, FL (June 12, 2003) - Blane De St. Croix, associate professor of art at Florida Atlantic University, has been selected as one of the recipients for the prestigious 2003 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Arts. The $15,000 award is one of 12 different awards given to artists all over South Florida for artistic excellence.

De St. Croix works in the area of sculpture and installation art. His work has gained international attention through exhibits in Western and Eastern Europe, and he has been included in numerous U.S. exhibitions. He has received many awards for his work including the Florida Individual Artist Fellowship for 2000-2001 and a regional National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowship in sculpture in 1993.

De St. Croix's works, as well as those of the 11 other recipients, will be on display at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (PBICA) from July 4 to August 17. De St. Croix's PBICA exhibition focuses on humans and the consumption of food. "Tongues in Soil," which was inspired by an Irish poem that described how people's tongues would turn black from malnourishment, displays cast iron tongues amid a layer of dirt. Another installation, "Tablecloth," uses burnt bread to create a table covering.

The PBICA is located in downtown Lake Worth at 601 Lake Avenue. For more information about the exhibition, call 561-582-0006, extension 0, and ask for Paula Matthews, or you can visit the website at info@palmbeachica.org.
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