Mineko Grimmer’s “Spiral Towers,” University of Washington, Seattle, 1988.

NAPA — The Oxbow School, a studio-art-based semester program in Napa, is presenting its fall visiting artist lecture series.

Japanese-born Mineko Grimmer offers her perspectives on art and design on Monday, Sept. 22, at Copia Auditorium, 500 1st St. in Napa, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Grimmer, born in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, in 1949, received a B.A. from Iwate University. While working as a commercial artist, she moved to Los Angeles, where she earned a BFA and MFA from the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, including an installation, “Symposium,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which Douglas C. McGill of the New York Times described as “crowd-stopping sculpture” and “mesmerizing.”

Her gallery work unites natural materials, such as stone and water, with natural forces, such as gravity, temperature, and time. This sculpture, which is both visual and audio, creates a harmonious relationship between opposites by combining a Japanese tradition of using and arranging natural materials with a contemporary attitude of process, randomness, and change.

In tandem with a talented and experienced faculty, visiting artists comprise and create one of the most compelling facets of the Oxbow program. Each semester, Oxbow hosts two artists who join the faculty for 10-day residencies, working with students to bring their own perspective, experiences and approaches to thinking about and making art.

In addition, artists visit to give lectures and Oxbow students travel to significant collections and arts institutions and meet informally with artists in their studios. Oxbow presents many of these artists in its fall and spring lecture series, free to the public, as part of its commitment to building a stronger Napa community.

For information, call (707) 255-6000 or visit the website at www.oxbowschool.org.