By SDCN Staff
Avalon, CA–The Catalina Museum of Art and History will present The Blue Forest, a captivating new installation by San Diego–based marine scientist and artist Oriana Poindexter.
The immersive experience will be on view from November 8 through October 11, 2026, museum officials announced.
The exhibition transports visitors into the underwater world of Catalina Island’s iconic kelp forests without ever getting wet.
“Oriana’s work embodies our mission to celebrate the unique art, history, and environment of Catalina,” said Sheila Bergman, Executive Director of Catalina Museum for Art and History. “The Blue Forest allows visitors to connect with the island’s natural world in a way that is as visually stunning as it is deeply meaningful.”
Created by hand using historic photographic processes, The Blue Forest features life-size cyanotype images of native marine flora, collected by Poindexter while freediving just off Catalina’s shoreline and contact printed onto flowing silk panels. Visitors wander through a labyrinth of luminous, ocean-blue silk that depicts giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), elk kelp (Pelagophycus porra), and other local species.
Both meditative and educational, the exhibition bridges art, science, and sensory experience. As light filters through the translucent panels, visitors are immersed in an environment that evokes the beauty and biodiversity of the island’s underwater ecosystems. For the first time in her work, Poindexter incorporates an underwater soundscape built from her own ocean recordings, deepening the sense of being submerged.
“I hope visitors will feel the sense of calm, curiosity, and connection that I experience underwater,” said Oriana Poindexter. “Entering the forest of cyanotype silks is an invitation to slow down, breathe, and recognize yourself as a small part of something much larger. The exhibit is designed to act as a portal into Catalina’s underwater world, offering an encounter that is at once intimate, meditative, and educational.”
Poindexter has a background spanning photography, fisheries, and marine conservation. She free dives, photographs, and collects marine 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 life-sized, light-formed records from which she creates art-science exhibits that engage viewers in contemplating the relationship between humans and the sea.
Her work has been published by Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and exhibited nationally at institutions including the Oceanside Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, and the Aquarium of the Pacific. Poindexter holds a M.A.S. from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a B.A. from Princeton University. Her works are held in private collections across the United States and Europe.
For more information about the Catalina Museum for Art and History, click here.
