Oriana Poindexter (b. 1989) is an American-Italian photographic artist and marine scientist with an academic background spanning photography, fisheries, and marine conservation. She dives, photographs, and collects specimens to create photo-based works that document the ocean’s shifting ecosystems. Her process, rooted in both traditional and alternative photographic techniques, results in light-formed records that engage viewers in contemplating the relationship between humans and the sea.
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 Laguna Art Museum, Oceanside Museum of Art, Center for Fine Art Photography, and UC San Diego’s Birch Aquarium, among others. She creates and curates art-science exhibits for museums and aquariums, with a solo exhibit currently on view at the Catalina Museum for Art & History. Her works are held in public and private collections across the United States and in Europe.
Artist Statement - Blue Forest series
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 through the contact form or by reaching out directly to studio@orianapoindexter.com.