This journey through 550 million years of evolution springs from the mind of Ray Troll, an Alaskan artist with an international reputation for his scientifically accurate, humorous and insightful representations of fish and the ocean's ancient inhabitants. The exhibit is open now through August 16, 1998.
Troll displays sixty-plus paintings and prints in the show.
In addition, the artist and a team of Academy exhibit developers painted huge murals on most of the walls using dayglow paint and black lighting to create a dark yet festive underwater experience. His pieces are light-hearted portrayals of early vertebrate evolution. The fishes Troll draws are bizarre and dreamlike, but only the presentation is creative. The drawings are based on educated guesses from paleontologists. Many of the animals have never been drawn, let alone seen by the general public.