Spawn Till You Die: The Fin Art of Ray Troll

RAY TROLL is a world-renowned artist known for his scientifically accurate and often humorous artwork, inspired by field work and research in marine science, paleontology, geology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Ray’s renditions of everything from modern day salmon and marine mammals to bizarre creatures of the prehistoric past have become iconic in fishing, scientific, and environmental activist communities around the world.

His work, distributed from the Soho Coho Art Gallery in Ketchikan, Alaska, can be found on posters, hoodies, and millions of t-shirts sported by fisher folks, the occasional celebrity and many others. Ray’s paintings and mixed-media drawings are in the collections of the Miami Museum of Science, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Alaska Airlines, the Anchorage Museum, the Alaska State Museum, and the Ketchikan Museum. His books include Sharkabet: a Sea of Sharks from A to Z and Crusisn’ the Fossil Coastline and Cruisin the Fossil Freeway with Dr. Kirk Johnson, now director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, for which he and Kirk were awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He and Port Townsend writer Brad Matsen produced four popular books: Shocking Fish Tales, Planet Ocean, Raptors, Fossil, Fins and Fangs and Rapture of the Deep.

Ray’s recent ventures include co-hosting the popular Paleo Nerd Podcast, featuring informative and amusing interviews with leading paleontologists and scientists from around the world. He is the recipient of a gold medal for distinction in the natural history arts by the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, a Rasmuson Foundation Distinguished artist award and also received the Alaska Governor’s award for the arts.

Troll has a ratfish species named for him and an extinct genus of extinct round-bellied herring named for him. He also plays icthyo-centirc rock n’ roll music with his band the Ratfish Wranglers.