Born in Kawakawa, Northland, Virginia King spent her childhood growing up in Northland before completing secondary school in Wellington. She studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland and the Chelsea Art School, London, developing an interest in sculpture from the early 1980s.

Over the past thirty years King, has been commissioned to create an extensive portfolio of large-scale, site-specific works for public locations and private collectors. Major Australian commissions include Willinga Plume, 2013, at Canberra Airport and Reed Vessel, 2004, in Melbourne’s Docklands, while international commissions include Pacific Star and Colony at the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia, Limpet at the Hawaii State Art Museum, Honolulu and Leaf, Frond and Coral at the University of Singapore.

In 1999 King was awarded an Antarctic Artist Fellowship - a pivotal experience within her practice. Following her residency in Antarctica, scientists sent electron microscope images of diatoms (algae at the beginning of the food chain), to inform her celebrated Antarctic Heart series - an installation of video and sculpture shown in black light. The exhibition toured public galleries in New Zealand and Australia between 2001 and 2008, including the opening of Christchurch Art Gallery, Te Puna O Waiwhetu. King’s work continues to reference marine micro-organisms, corals and foraminifera.

Her vessel forms explore exploration and migration, nurturing and protection, life and survival. These works raise the urgency of conservation issues; the fragility of our environment and the global need for stewardship and protection of the natural world.

Since then, King has built an impressive resume of projects throughout the country and the world. She designed two significant public footbridges in Auckland; Rewarewa Creek, 1997, and Aramarama Millennium, at Mission Bay, 2000. In 2008, King was commissioned to create the David Lange Memorial in Otahuhu, Auckland and in 2013, a six metre sculpture, Hinaki Guardian, was commissioned for Hobsonville Wharf. Woman of Words, a unique figurative sculpture celebrating the life of Katherine Mansfield was installed in Lambton Quay, Wellington in 2013 and Heart of Oak was suspended in the Ohinetahi Gardens in Christchurch the following year.

King has been a regular exhibitor at ‘Sculpture on the Gulf’ on Waiheke Island as well as participating in ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ in Bondi and Perth.

In 2019 King was honoured to be invited by the European Cultural Centre to exhibit at Palazzo Bembo during Venice Biennale. This invitation was a powerful affirmation and celebration of her extensive body of work and position as one of New Zealand’s leading sculptors. By exhibiting in the collateral exhibition Personal Structures Pacific Light, her environmental concerns were brought to the world stage.

June 2020