Ray Troll's new book Fishhead is an exuberant plunge into the fantastic
realities of sea creatures and prehistoric animals that come alive with
scientific realism and his quirky sense of humor. For more than four
decades, this celebrated Alaskan artist has been luring, hooking, and
landing fans around the world with his mesmerizing renditions of the
inhabitants of Planet Ocean, past and present. His art is featured in
the nation's major natural history museums including the Smithsonian, in
galleries, and in books, as well as on immensely popular T-shirts. Part
natural history adventure and part underground comic, his work depicts
beautiful and accurately drawn fish of all kinds, Northwest Coast
totems, Freud and Darwin, fossils, resurrections of extinct animals, and
much more.
Troll's art is deeply thought provoking (pun intended) but also simply
fun to experience and never far from an inside joke he seems to be
sharing with everyone. Some of his pieces are amusingly tongue-in-cheek,
others are beautifully surrealistic and evocative of the
interconnectedness of life on Earth, and his grandly composed major
pieces are brilliant, inspiring panoramas of the natural world. His
whimsy and attention to detail in his renderings of fish and other
aquatic creatures has earned him a devoted following of scientists,
anglers, and people who just like a good laugh. Welcome to the fishy,
funny, inspiring art of Ray Troll.
