Yolanda Cotton Turner

Yolanda is an Oakland Visual Artist and Fine Art Printmaker working in Alameda. She attended California State University, Hayward (1988-1992) to study music, and there, she was introduced to lithography where she instantly fell in love with the laborious, mind-bending, and magnificently serendipitous processes of fine art printmaking.

Experimental by nature, Yolanda often creates with other mediums to keep her methods fresh while still giving respect to the more traditional printmaking processes. Her imagery commonly focuses on urban culture, our kindred power within nature, the magic in music, the human experience, and other social, spiritual, and environmental inspirations. Yolanda uses plexiglass, wood, lino, and nature itself as a printing plate, printing onto handmade paper, mulberry, cotton rag, or natural fabrics. She personally executes all the steps involved in the printmaking process, from developing the image, gouging, inking, and pulling the print by hand utilizing a Griffin etching press.

Yolanda’s work has earned a spot on the walls of the de Young Museum in San Francisco, CA (2020) as well as The Richmond Art Center (2023) and many other notable Bay Area galleries. She can be found curating creative experiences at her gallery, The Red Door Art Alley, in Alameda, California.

She can be contacted at cottonturner.com and [email protected] as well as on facebook & Instagram.