# Spawn Till You Die: The Fin Art of Ray Troll - Hardcover

by **Ray Troll** (Artist)

  
Ray Troll's new  
book _Spawn Till You Die: The Fin Art of  
Ray Troll_ 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.

### Author Biography

  
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.

**Number of Pages:** 232

**Dimensions:** 1.02 x 11.02 x 8.9 IN

**Publication Date:** January 30, 2024

## Details

- **Price:** 59.99 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 59.99 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Spawn Till You Die: The Fin Art of Ray Troll - Hardcover

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