Virginia King was born in Kawakawa, New Zealand, in 1946. She studied at the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design and the Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland. Between 1977 and 1979 King studied printmaking (lithography and etching) at Auckland Society of the Arts and also at Chelsea School of Arts in London. Since the late 1980s she has diversified her practice and produced sculpture, installations and video work. King has held solo exhibitions since 1978, including 'Tideline-Sculpture: a ten year survey' at Whangarei Art Museum in 1999, and 'Fathom' at Whitespace Gallery, Auckland, in 2005. Her work has also appeared in numerous group exhibitions both in New Zealand and abroad. King has been the beneficiary of a number of awards including the Jane Campion Memory Award, the Rewarewa Creek Footbridge Award (2000), and the Recipient Artist Award in the Artists to Antarctica program 1999-2000: among her public commissions is Reed Vessel (2003) at Docklands in Melbourne.

The kauri is a large native tree that predominantly grows in the North Island of New Zealand. However, as a result of the logging that took place by the European settlers from the 1840s, a high percentage of the indigenous kauri forests have been lost. Exploited to the point of extinction, the kauri is now an endangered species: Styx (Sticks) is a response to the loss. King's video carefully considers the ethical and philosophical debates surrounding ecology. She blends a variety of media including sculpture, photography and video to critique the actions of the colonists that resulted in the demise of the kauri forests by the 1930s.

Styx (Sticks) is a political video that fuses documentary and the photograph. Throughout this work, historical photographs of kauri logging are superimposed upon moving images of timber sculptures (created by the artist) drifting along a river. King employs the stages of grief symbolised in Greek mythology by five underworld rivers: the Acheron (river of woe), Cocytus (river of lamentation), Phlegethon (river of fire), Lethe (river of forgetfulness), and Styx (river of hate). According to Greek mythology, the Styx was the main river that surrounded the underworld, and it was also the river across which dead souls were ferried to Hades, the ruler of the kingdom of the dead. The underworld rivers are symbolic of the grief experienced as a result of the extinction of the kauri Forests, however, the stories of the underworld are suggestive of much more. King is making the connection between the dead souls that travel across the river Styx, and the timber that travelled across the river to reach the logging factories. In the video, King uses old documentary footage which records the native timber being transported across the logging dams to the milling sites, where the wood would be used in ship building, furniture, bridges, and textiles, essentially with the intention of developing a strong agricultural based economy. Hades, the Lord of the Dead, is recognised as an insatiable god, concerned with increasing his wealth and power. Styx (Sticks) is thus a commentary on the way in which the kauri forests have been host to the invasion of European settlers.