A native Northern Californian, Melinda Lomax Cootsona received her BFA from the California College of the Arts in Oakland in 1981. Melinda has been included in exhibitions at The Bakersfield Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo Plein Air Painting Competition and the Triton Museum where she won an Award of Merit.

Her abstract figurative work, with its use of lines and composition, is a nod to her BA in Architectural Interior Design and the influences of Bay Area figurative arts like Diebenkorn and Park. Her process always begins as an abstract, with multiple layers of shapes, lines, patterns and colors built up numerous times before she even considers the ultimate “subject matter.” Often her paintings depict private moments in a personal life.