Melinda is a member of the North Bay/Mattawa Algonquin First Nation, and currently lives with her family in North Bay, Ontario. She has a Bachelor of Arts from McMaster University in Hamilton, and has completed additional studies in art at the Dundas Valley School of Art and at Redeemer University in Ancaster. She was born in North Bay, but grew up in Western Canada, often moving from one place to the next in Alberta and B.C.

Melinda paints with oils, watercolours and acrylics, sometimes incorporating mixed media to establish texture and dimension within the painting. Her paintings show the beauty of the untamed wilderness, snapshots of a great blue heron in flight, a freshly born bison calf, the sunlight behind the last leaves of the Fall, illuminated behind a cluster of trees.

She is inspired by the story of her ancestors: Algonquin relations born into the fur trade and an Anishinaabe grandmother, orphaned, born “illegitimate” in a rural Catholic church and referred to as simply “Sauvage.” A great-grandmother from the Mi’kmaq territories on Canada’s Eastern shores, her stories buried deep in a family who could not acknowledge their origins. A mother’s Scottish clan, with roots buried deep within the icy northern Orkney islands who, after centuries of war and hardship, sailed to Canada.

These inspiring stories are those of survival, families torn apart and reunited, of travelling great distances and remembering an identity attached to a far-away place. Melinda’s childhood was a nomadic adventure until she settled in North Bay, where the footsteps of her ancestors have brought her home.

This collection of oil and acrylic paintings on canvas and watercolours show us what Melinda sees when she looks at her home, and when she looks at herself. She addresses identity, and connects us to the earth, the water and the air.