Carla Poindexter is a Professor in the Department of Fine Art in the School of Visual Arts and Design (SVAD).  She received her BFA from the University of Texas in 1979 and her MFA from Texas Tech University in 1999. She completed three years post baccalaureate studies, one in painting at the University of Houston in 1981 and two years in art history and experimental ceramics at the Alfred C. Glassell School of Art, Houston, in 1983. She is a studio artist with over forty year’s professional experience in painting, drawing, photography and mixed media.  In the past 25 years she has expanded her research into book arts and film making. A limited edition visual artist’s book entitled, The Devil at the Door includes 20 reproductions of original drawings on paper, hand colored etchings and mixed media collage.  The visual book was funded by a UCF Professional Development Research Award. 

She created and directed a nine-minute animated film using visual materials from her works in painting and drawing. The soundtrack was composed by Jay Batzner, Assistant Professor of Music, UCF.  This collaborative project was made possible through funding from a 2007 College of Arts and Humanities Professional Development Grant for collaborative projects between disciplines. The film project was completed in 2009 and was selected for 22 internationally adjudicated official film festival screenings, receiving two international awards for animated shorts. The film has also been screened in the recent past at numerous galleries, museums and experimental art venues.

Poindexter has a large exhibition record of her drawings and paintings in commercial, educational, and public galleries and her work is included in numerous private and public collections.  She resided in Texas for nearly twenty years before coming to Orlando, where she was actively involved in a vital art community in Houston.  Her exhibition record includes 23 solo exhibitions and numerous juried and curated group exhibitions nationally and internationally.

In 2003, Poindexter received a major commission from the State of Florida’s Art-In-State Buildings Program to create an 8' x 28' painting on canvas for the Darden Theatre atrium of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management in Orlando, Florida, where the painting is on permanent display.  

Residencies include a visiting resident artist-lecturer at Seacourt Fine Arts Press in Bangor, Ireland. Poindexter was also selected by the internationally distinguished painter, Malcolm Morley, to work alongside him in the painting studio during a 3-week artist’s residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

As the SVAD Director of Summer Study Abroad in Scotland for ten years, she was also the instructor of record and mentoring advisor for UCF art students who enrolled in various art classes at the Edinburgh College of Art in Edinburgh, Scotland, for two-three weeks each summer. In addition, she taught various one-week studio classes at the college and presented numerous formal lectures of her work as a visiting artist. These slide presentations where available to the public during Edinburgh’s International Festival and to the international art students in attendance at the college throughout her ten years tenure at the Edinburgh College of Art.  

At UCF, Poindexter teaches Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced and Graduate level Painting in alternating semesters, and Studio Concentration in SVAD’s MFA in Studio Art and Design program. She also teaches an occasional Book Arts or Advanced Drawing course.  

For four summers during her early years at UCF, in partnership with the Orlando Museum of Art, she taught an advanced class in experimental Book Arts to upper level UCF art students on site at the OMA.  During this course, students researched and visually responded to work in the museum galleries and engaged in studio practice in an OMA studio and in various studios within their chosen discipline at UCF.

Poindexter is an active fine artist working in multiple disciplines. She maintains painting, drawing, and printmaking studio spaces in her home/studio and at the McRae Studios Artist Collective in downtown Orlando.