Val started painting in the mid-1960s and first exhibited in 1968. Works in oil on canvas predominate among his paintings although he has worked in acrylic and continues to work on paper. His body of work includes individual, non-commissioned paintings as well as space-specific commissions.

His craft developed through studio experience. In 1972 he joined the Taliesin Fellowship where he continued creative work in the visual arts and as harpsichordist in addition to fulfilling administrative responsibilities. In 1984 he resumed independent full-time painting and sculpture.

Since the early 1980s Cox has worked on a continuing series in oil on canvas, form/unformed. He describes these works as "multi-planar, a synthesis of painting and sculpture in which the surfaces of paintings are contoured and shaped, sometimes composed of multiple panels to form a single canvas." Cox says the series developed from his desire to find forms that "participate in the space of their environment. They impinge on surrounding space and encourage the viewer to move in space. As with sculpture, no single vantage point reveals the entire painting. People have to move to see everything. Since the series uses space as a medium I describe the media as oil/canvas/space."

ARTIST'S STATEMENT
"Paintings, for me, are conduits of abstract information," Cox comments. "Documents from which viewers can receive according to individual temperament and need. They're neither 'pictures' of anything nor do they contain subject matter nor are they personal statements. They are what you see--color and form."