Rapture of the Deep: The Art of Ray Troll

by Ray Troll, David James Duncan (Foreword), Brad Matsen (Introduction)

For more than two decades, Ray Troll has been luring, hooking, and landing fans around the world with his zany, irreverent, and often surreal art. Featured in museums, galleries, and books, as well as on immensely popular T-shirts, his work―part natural history adventure and part underground comic―depicts beautiful and accurately drawn fish of all kinds, Northwest Coast totems, Freud and Darwin, fossils, resurrections of extinct animals, and much more.

Rapture of the Deep collects some of Troll's best-known art along with many images never before published. The book makes powerful connections between biological diversity, the evolution of life on earth, and the careless habits of people. Rapture of the Deep celebrates Troll's vision with legendary works including "Spawn Till You Die," "Life's a Fish and Then You Fry," and "Bassackwards," in which fish use money, liquor, and literature as bait to lure humans. Troll's running commentary reveals the thought and inspiration behind his art. Writer Brad Matsen, Troll's longtime coconspirator, adds a lively introduction to the art and life of his "sole" brother.

Genres: Art

148 pages, Hardcover

First published August 29, 2004

About the author

From his tree lined studio, high on a hill above the Tongass Narrows in rain-swept Ketchikan Alaska, Ray Troll draws & paints fishy images that migrate into museums, books and magazines and onto t-shirts sold around the planet. Basing his quirky, aquatic images on the latest scientific discoveries, Ray brings a street-smart sensibility to the worlds of ichthyology & paleontology.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an art book so if you like Troll's colorful fish art then you'll like this book. I like his art a lot, particularly the ones with a Alaskan Native American influence. The title comes from a condition scuba divers get when too much nitrogen gets in their blood and it causes strange sensations including hallucinations. That's very apt for Troll's art.