Virginia King
"My sculpture celebrates life in the South Pacific. By magnifying and abstracting the scale and complexity of natural life forms, I draw attention to their beauty and fragility and the vulnerability of the Earth’s eco- systems. The works are informed by mythology, history, science and literature and express concerns about ecology and survival and the delicate balance between sustainability and progress."
After being awarded an Antarctic Artist Fellowship in1999, King
traveled to Antarctica and the resulting exhibition of sculpture
and video, Antarctic Heart, toured public galleries in New
Zealand and Australia between 2001 and 2007. She was commissioned
in 1998, to create Pacific Star - a floating installation,
for the opening of the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Noumea,
New Caledonia and the same year her sculpture
Limpet-Shrine won the Jane Campion Memory Award for site
specific sculpture at Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney.
Tideline, a ten year survey of her work, was presented
at the Whangarei Art Museum in 1999 and she participated in
Singapore '99, the Pacific Rim Exhibition Volume and
Form,
Interactive commissions include the Rewarewa Creek
Footbridge, Waitakere City and Aramarama
Millennium Footbridge at Mission Bay Auckland, The
Koru and Raupo Rattler at Brick Bay,
Matakana, Oioi Bridge at Connells Bay Centre for
Sculpture, and Tower of Words - Tower of Silence, at Omaru
Bay, Waiheke Island. Virginia completed Reed
Vessel, a commissioned sculpture in Docklands
Park, Melbourne, in 2004.
She exhibited in Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island
three times and won the Peoples Choice Awards for Matiatia
Frond, (2003) and Nautilus Whispers, (2007)
King exhibited Sliver a three meter diameter sculpture
in the inaugural exhibition of Brick Bay Sculpture Trail,
2006 and her installation Southern Nautilus was created
for the Pacific Series at Pataka Gallery Porirua 2007. Her
Stainless Steel work Pupu Harakeke was awarded the
Stoneleigh Peoples Choice Award at the Botanic Gardens (2008). King
participated in the fifth Goodman-Suter Contemporary Art Project,
The Maui Dynasty in December 2008 and completed the
David Lange Memorial, in Otahuhu, Auckland the same year.
In 2009 King exhibited in The Great Journey at Kaohsiung
Museum, Taiwan King was a Distinguished Invited Artist at Sculpture
by the Sea Bondi 2010. She is currently commissioned to create the
Katherine Mansfield Project in Wellington for 2012.
David Bateman Limited published Virginia King Sculptor
in 2005 (ISBN 1-86953 -615-0)
Related Links
Back to top