Images by Heidi Zumbrun

Oriana Poindexter is a photographer and marine scientist. Her work opens dialogues about our relationship with the changing biodiversity of the ocean using traditional and alternative photo processes.

Poindexter holds an M.A.S. in Marine Biodiversity & Conservation from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a B.A. in Visual Arts from Princeton University. Her work has been published by Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and exhibited at the Oceanside Museum of Art, the Center for Fine Art Photography, and the San Diego Public Library, and many others. She creates art-science exhibits for Southern California’s leading aquariums, most recently for Embodied Pacific: Ocean Unseen, the Birch Aquarium at UC San Diego’s participation in the Getty Center’s PST Art Initiative. Her works are held in private collections across the United States and in Europe.

Full CV (link)

Images L to R: Avery Schuyler Nunn, Austin Leathers, Jordann Tomasek

Artist Statement

My work examines the intersection of art, science and the ocean with traditional and alternative photo-based processes. I dive, photograph, and collect images and specimens from my immersions to translate my experiences and interactions with the ocean’s inhabitants into a record of that time and place.

The collections of images and specimens from specific areas over time combine to create a portrait of place, illustrated by the inhabitants of the environments themselves. The morphology of the specimens I collect, primarily seaweed, are recorded by light as they lay in contact with the photographic paper, creating life-size records of their existence in the chemistry of photography.

This process is tangible, physical and natural. The immersion of my own body in the ocean, the searching, finding and plucking of the seaweed,  the exposure in sunlight and the final immersion of the print in water, all feels like an antidote to the paralysis of modern life as the impacts of humanity on the planet loom larger.

Get in touch by reaching out through the contact form or directly to studio@orianapoindexter.com.