Gallery: Amazing Life-Size Fish Paintings Are a New Vision of Nature
© Jason Houston01in-the-studio
Some assumptions are so deeply ingrained that it's difficult to imagine the world from another perspective. Take taxonomy: We're raised to see nature through an essentially 18th century system of classification, one rooted in the urge to impose order on a vibrant, messy world. Not that there's anything wrong with order, of course, and taxonomies are quite useful. But sometimes, says artist [James Prosek](http://www.troutsite.com/), they get in the way. We perceive names instead of beings, representative types instead of individual animals pulsing with life. "I'm interested in exploring how we might be able to communicate nature differently," Prosek said. "The way we communicate nature affects the way we perceive and treat it." Prosek rose to natural history acclaim in 1997, when [*Trout: An Illustrated History*](http://www.troutsite.com/book-01.html) earned him comparisons to John James Audubon, the great naturalist and painter whose name is now synonymous with nature's beauty. Like Audubon, [Prosek is a conservationist](http://www.troutsite.com/conservation.html), but in the years following *Trout*, written while Prosek was still an undergraduate, his art [evolved beyond natural history](http://www.troutsite.com/art.html). Prosek still employs the visual language of that tradition, but he now challenges its conventions. In [*Ocean Fishes*](http://www.amazon.com/James-Prosek-Fishes-Paintings-Saltwater/dp/0847839079), his new book and collection of paintings, Prosek urges people to see nature, and especially the fish he loves so dearly, in a new light: Forget taxonomic checkboxes and biodiversity and ecosystem services, and think about a single creature's life. On the following pages, Prosek takes Wired on a tour of his new work. __Above:__ In the Studio ------------- Each of the paintings in *Ocean Fishes* is life-sized and modeled on an individual fish that Prosek saw in person, alive and still flushed with colors that fade within moments of death. To paint this blue marlin, he traveled to the Cape Verde islands off West Africa. At fifteen feet long, it's the largest of the new paintings. *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/JP_studio_bluemarlin.jpg))*
02beyond-classifications
Beyond Classifications ---------------------- Prosek's first book, *Trout of the World*, grew out of his boyhood love of trout, an enthusiasm pursued in a pre-internet age by writing letters to biologist and poring through library tomes of natural history. At the beginning, recalls Prosek, he thought the classification of salmonids — the fish family spanning trout and salmon — into different species was biologically ordained. The more Prosek learned, however, the more lines blurred. A blueback trout, for instance, is simply an Arctic char that happens to live in a different place. Rainbow trout and brown trout share an appellation, but are only distantly related. When the ranges of certain species overlap, such as cutthroat and rainbow trout, they often mate with one another and hybridize, despite their ostensible differences. "What I'd thought of as a kid as some kind of rigid system, I learned was a complete mess," said Prosek. And whereas his early paintings were often based on illustrations and written descriptions, striving towards archetypal representations of species, Prosek's travels for his next projects — [*Fly-Fishing the 41st*](http://www.troutsite.com/book-05.html) and [*Trout of the World*](http://www.troutsite.com/book-06.html) — taught him that even individuals of the same subspecies were often quite different. As much as Prosek loved natural history's illustrations, he realized that the notion of archetype was an illusion, too. Out of this came his decision to paint single, specific individuals in *Ocean Fishes*. "I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't painting a fish to represent a species in a field guide, but an individual. This is one fish I saw," said Prosek, who saw the bluefin tuna above harpooned in Cape Cod Bay. "But from doing that, I learned that even if you've seen the fish, you still can't depict a fish as dynamic and constantly changing as a tuna. When you pull a tuna out of the water, it's pulsing with color and life. It's like a reflection on the water. You can't capture that in one picture." *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/Tuna60x139.jpg))*
03seeing-a-fish
Seeing a Fish ------------- Prosek's dissatisfaction with species names raises a thorny question: What does it actually mean to look at a black sea bass (above) but not *see* a black sea bass, inasmuch as the name conveys generalizations about its lineage? At a basic level, classifications and names are inescapable. To communicate is to name. For Prosek, the key is to understand that a species "is not separate from everything else, but is part of this fluid, continuous thing," including a creature's locale. In the *Ocean Fish* paintings, each fish is accompanied by depictions of other organisms found in its extended world — in this case, a quahog clam and beach plums. *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/JP_BlackSeaBass.jpg))*
04the-new-audubon
The New Audubon --------------- Once [described by the *New York Times*](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/07/books/an-angler-lands-the-best-of-friends.html) as "the Audubon of fish," Prosek finds the comparison flattering but in some ways misleading. "Audubon was painting a nature that was just being discovered by Europeans," he said. "Painting now is a very different process. I always feel like I'm in the process of depicting something we're losing very quickly." Nassau grouper like the one above are an endangered species, as are many of the subjects in *Ocean Fishes*. Like Audubon, Prosek is a conservationist. (He even founded [World Trout](http://www.troutsite.com/conservation.html), an organization devoted to preserving native trout populations.) His task is a struggle, however, and not only because trout are threatened by development and climate change. Conservation as an ideal is struggling, often unable to articulate why the well-being of a particular subspecies is more important than a profit, invoking nebulous ideals of biodiversity or making ecosystem service arguments that leave little room for sentiment, much less a pocket of trout that evolved for 10,000 years in the headwaters of a Croatian stream. For Prosek, engaging with individual animals is an alternative to the usual conservation arguments — the seeds, he hopes, of a new conservation ethos. *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/JP_NassauGrouper_revised.jpg))*
05hidden-from-sight
Hidden From Sight ----------------- Of all animals, fish are the hardest to see in their natural environments, and this makes it difficult to appreciate them in way people do birds or mammals. For some, such as the Spanish mackerel above, it's almost easier to picture them as filets than actual creatures. "We don't have the opportunity to see them alive, in living colors," said Prosek. "That's part of what I wanted to show people. These creatures are incredible, but you see them dead and pale in a market. You're not getting that privileged view from the water." *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/JP_Spanish-Mackerel.jpg))*
06the-colors-of-life
The Colors of Life ------------------ Within moments of death, fish often begin to lose their color. This process was captured nicely in the movie version of *The Life of Pi*, said Prosek, when computer-generated mahi mahi like the one painted above are shown "with the lights of the fish going out as they die." *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/JP_Dorado2.jpg))*
07unappreciated-beauty
Unappreciated Beauty -------------------- The tendency of dead fish to lose their color has skewed our images of them. Atlantic cod, typically [depicted in dull brown](http://is.gd/XeGRYH), "are one of the most misunderstood in terms of coloration," Prosek said. "When they come out of the water, they're all spotted and beautiful. I had no idea they had so much coloration." *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/JP_AtlanticCod.jpg))*
08ocean-fish-in-person
Ocean Fish in Person -------------------- Prosek's paintings can be seen in the book [*Ocean Fish*](http://www.amazon.com/James-Prosek-Fishes-Paintings-Saltwater/dp/0847839079). They'll also be on display at the National Arts Club in New York City [from February 19 to March 2](http://www.nationalartsclub.org/default.aspx?p=.NETEventView&ID=3246732&qfilter=&type=0&ssid=&chgs=). "I'm not against the Linnaean system of classification," he said. "I'm just offering my own personal taxonomy, the visual taxonomy of an artist who really likes these fish." *Image: James Prosek ([High-Resolution Version](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2013/01/Ocean_Fishes_jacket.jpg))*
