Born and raised in Poland, and holding a Ph.D. in Immunology from the Polish Academy of Sciences, Margaret Oechsli is emerging as an important artist in the relatively new style of photography.  Her work elicits the natural existence of art within science - at the microscopic level.

By varying the magnification, illumination and staining of the intriguing world beneath the normal threshold of human perception, Ms. Oechsli captures her vivid and powerful abstract images.

Three times, in 1997, 1999, and 2005 Ms. Oechsli’s art has been honored in the Nikon International Small World Competition.  One of her photographs filled a page of Nikon’s “Celebrating 25 Years of Photomicrography” calendar, and was part of a twenty-image Nikon show in 2000 at numerous museums and science centers throughout the U.S. Her work was also published in a form of 52 page calendar and multi-image poster by Hamilton Printing in 2003. She is currently displayed in the $7.6 million “World Within Us” exhibit at the Louisville Science Center.

She is not using photomicrography in a traditional sense for scientific illustrations. For her the microscope is just a tool for creating new genre of visual art, “photomicrograph art”. The intention is to find the artistic images existing in nature. Bring them to the surface. Share with others.

Ms. Oechsli is employed at Heart & Lung Institute at Jewish Hospital, Louisville, Kentucky. Previously, she had worked as a Research Associate at the J. Graham Brown Cancer Center, University of Louisville, the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

United States

Contact form for more information.