Victoria Wagner

Overview

Intimately entangled with both landscape and fabricated industrial materials, Wagner's sculptural paintings evoke visible and unseen realms. She grew up on the eastern slope of the Sierras, where tribal land and wild horses converge with dramatic vistas, sprawling ranches and 24-hour casino culture. Abject poverty exists alongside extreme, yet modest wealth. The air is thin, temperatures can be extreme, people work hard, play harder and the enormity of the sky and mountains feel like a religious experience. It is a place simultaneously chaotic and tranquil, rugged and contained. Coming of age in this landscape, amidst the cultural conditions, people and wildlife, Victoria learned about the relationships between land and its inhabitants, and became aware of industry’s great ironies — how its employment is necessary to people’s sustenance while its operations affect the health of the land. Having become sensitive to contrasting extremes, her work contains the tension of coexisting visual and theoretical paradoxes. In her painted wood and metal artworks, she uses unlikely material pairings and unusual color combinations to gently aggravate the viewer’s existing assumptions about spatial relationships. Working with disparate and seemingly unrelated elements, She is able to re-orchestrate and organize them into harmonic relationships that reveal unexpected beauty.

"I find that working with local wood provides a connection to land and becomes a practice of stewardship. Beyond the visible realm is a plane of vibration, energy, and mystery. This plane is where empirical knowledge becomes interwoven with belief, where our eyes can play tricks on us, where logic is overwritten by feeling and where my imagery originates. Through engagement and observation of nature’s patterns, I witness coincidence, reveal symbols, notice colors, explore relationships and feel a deep resonance with the spirit of the land. Overlaying geometric constellations onto organic topographies, my abstract compositions are as narrative as tree rings or cell structure or the materiality of aluminum."

With paint, she creates prismatic spectrums that ripple, accelerate, reverberate and flow. Invoking transcendentalists, she uses color as an intuitive tool to increase balance within the body. In these ways her colorful multi-media assemblages seek to connect people and objects — through what is seen and sensed — to the mystical nature of our world."

Download Artist's CV

Works

It was Spring. Artemis passed through the Earth's Atmosphere, 2026
Four More Days, Said the Mountain
Geese Fly South, Calling out from their Formation, 2025
Gentle Moonbeam Illuminating Low Places, 2022
Come the Bells
We are the Sun, We are the Sand
Misty Morning and We are One
In Perfect Combination
And Then Summer Came with Such a Relentless Beauty That It Made Us Feel Bashful
Spring Water
Weightlessness and Letting Go
If I Relax, the Pieces Will Not Blow Away
The Kiss
Facing West as the Last Light Shimmers, 2025

Exhibitions

Biography

Education

2001 MFA, Mills College, Oakland, CA

1993 BA, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

Public Collections

Capital One Digital Innovation Labs, San Francisco, CA

Ashiya Baycourt Club, Tokyo, Japan

Shri Ninai Enterprises, Raigad, India

M.I Star Mineral Water, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Reenie Bird Vintage (outdoor mural), Sebastopol, CA

Wash Plus, (hand-painted pictogram signage and indoor mural), Sebastopol, CA

Solo Exhibitions

2021 Solo Show, Maybaum Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2021 Solo Show, College of Marin Fine Arts Gallery, Kentfield, CA

2020 Everglow, Maybaum Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2019 Baby, Let’s Get Out of Here and Build a Love Nest in Space, Miracle Plum, Santa Rosa, CA

2019 on a clear day, we can be forever, Hammerfriar Gallery, Healdsburg, CA

2018 Our Vision Will Be Better On The Moon, Local Language, Oakland, CA

2017 Victoria Wagner, Gallery Lulo, Healdsburg, CA

2016 Believer, Neon Raspberry Art House, Occidental, CA

2015 Logic of the Ordinary, Kitty Hawk Gallery, Sebastopol, CA

2014 Interference at the Edge of the By and By, Louie Meager Museum, Ohlone College, Fremont, CA

2014 Wonder the Passing Through, Dose Projects, Brooklyn, NY

2014 Eclipsed days and compressed dimension, Studio Blomster, Guerneville, CA

2013 Victoria Wagner, Stark Tasting Room, Healdsburg, CA

2012 Our Mother The Mountain, Marion and Rose’s Workshop, Oakland, CA

2010 Extramundane: The Journey of the Shades, Hyde Street Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2009 When the Past Has Passed It Will Be Silver, Four Barrel, San Francisco, CA

2009 Formations, Blankspace Gallery, Oakland, CA

2008 The Remains, Don Soker Contemporary, San Francisco, CA

2004 Topographies of Torque and Tangent, Quicksilver Mine, Forestville, CA

2000 Untitled, Andrea Schwartz, San Francisco, CA

Awards, Public Engagements, Residencies

2020 Recipient, Quick Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation

2018 Artist-in-Residence, Local Language, Oakland, CA

2017 Artist-in-Residence, Kala Art Institute Berkeley, CA

2016 Artists in Conversation with Heather Marx, Berkeley Art Center, CA

2016 Guest lecturer for Nancy Selvin, Color and Perception, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA

2014 Visiting Artist Lecturer, Ohlone College, Fremont, CA

2013 Recipient, Creative Capacity Fund Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation

2013 Artist-in-Residence, Chalk Hill, Healdsburg, CA

2008 Painting Lecturer, Mills College, Oakland, CA

2005 Nominee, Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation

2001 Graduate Teaching Assistantship, Ron Nagle, Mills College, Oakland, CA

2000 Visiting Artist Lecturer, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

2000 Mini Research Grant, Mills College, Oakland, CA

Group Exhibitions

2020 Art Miami Online, Maybaum Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2020 Relics from the Future, NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA

2020 Astro Hotel, Selected Artist Room Takeover, Santa Rosa, CA

2019 Altered States, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA

2019 In Flux, Angela Meleca, Columbus, OH

2019 Midsummer Edit: A Group Show, Sarah Shepard Gallery, Larkspur, CA

2019 Roving Venue presents…, The Mill, Healdsburg, CA

2018 Artists’ Annual, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA

Artsy Introductions, Alfa Gallery, Miami, FL

Group Show, Art Works, Cedar City, UT

428collective, Hammerfriar Gallery, Healdsburg, CA

2017 Shelves II, Orie Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Spectral Hues, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA

The Exquisite Corpse of the Unknown Veteran, Not Alone, San Francisco, CA

Art Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA

forgotten words, Robert F. Agrella Art Gallery, Santa Rosa Junior College, CA

2016 I Look for Clues in Your Dreams, Berkeley Art Center, CA

2015 Rock Silica Soapbox, College Avenue Galleries, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA

2015 A Special Curatorial Project with Rirkrit Tiravanija: The Way Things Go, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA

2014 Mercado Sagrado by The Radder, Private Residence, Topanga, CA

2014 West Coast Craft, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA

2013 Transmissions, Marin Community Foundation, Novato, CA

2013 Falling Dark, Perdita Productions, Geyserville, CA

2013 Monster Drawing Rally, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

Tear it Out, Issues Magazine Shop, Oakland, CA

2011 Introductions, Root Division, San Francisco, CA

2012 Product 2, Studio 428, Healdsburg, CA

2010 Music from Mountaintops, Curated by Michelle Blade, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

2009 Passive/Aggressive, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

2009 Public Art/Urban Intervention Day, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

2009 Past Forward: 25th Anniversary Exhibition, The LAB, San Francisco, CA

2009 Mixed Metaphors and Obsessive Compulsive Behavior, Michael Rosenthal Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2008 Close Calls, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

2007 3x3, Curated by Ariege Arsuegel & Natasha Boas, Di Rosa Art and Nature Preserve, Napa, CA

2007 Summer Group Show, Don Soker Contemporary, San Francisco, CA

2006 From Nature, Jay/Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL

2006 Spring/Summer Group Show, Don Soker Contemporary, San Francisco, CA

2006 Microcosm, Richmond Art Center, CA

2005 Winter Group Show, Don Soker Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA

2005 In the Garden, Julie Baker Fine Art, Grass Valley, CA

2005 microcosm, Brewery Project Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2004 Botany 12, Curated by Natasha Boas, Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa, CA

Bibliography

2018 “Making Waves: 100 Artists Putting the East Bay on the Map,” San Francisco Magazine, Edited by Ian A. Stewart | May 31 “Studio Visit//Victoria Wagner”, The Studio Work, Elise Morris, Oct. 11.

2017 “Good Vibrations: Victoria Wagner,” American Craft, Feb/March, Written by Deborah Bishop

2016 “Gemstone Woodrocks,” Llamas Valley, By Kamile Niunevaite | February 16.

2016 “Intelligence: Wood to Jewels,” Curve Magazine, Lebanon, April/May

2016 “Wood Blocks Carved and Painted Into Glimmering Gemlike Objects”, This is Colossal by Christopher Jacobson, January 11.

2016 “Victoria Wagner/Woodrocks”, Dwell, by Design Crush

2016 “Woodrocks-Victoria Wagner”, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, repost: This is Colossal January 17

2016 “I Look for Clues in Your Dreams” (exhibition catalog), published by Ann Trinca and Berkeley Art Center, July 28.

2016 “Victoria Wagner on the Symbiosis of Art and Baking and Meeting Neighbors through Food”, Satori Travel, January 2.

2014 “Woodrocks. I Victoria Wagner”, Quiet Lunch, November 16.

2013 “Chalk Hill Residency/Victoria Wagner”, Elliptical Goodkind, by Michelle Blade, May 27.

2008 “Geologic Remains”, ArtSlant by Natalie Hegert, May 3.

2009 “Past Forward at the Lab”, by Sevilla Granger, July 31.