Opus Salvelinus
(Brook Trout)
Salvelinus fontinalis is the brook trout native to northeastern America. Here I have taken fish from the Montreal River that flows out to Lake Superior from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The Montreal River drains a wilderness of tag alder and cedar swamps, where we find pockets of old-growth forest and a single strand of original white pine, which has miraculously eluded the chainsaws. The trout are wild, rather than hatchery hybrids and exhibit an uncommon diversity of form – heightened by being taken during the spawning season, when males develop prominent hooked jaws and bright colors. Suppressing the trout's naturally brilliant coloration, the oranges, blues, and reds which otherwise would eclipse their graphic elegance, I instead explore the splendid variety of form and pattern evident in these fish, through the black and white medium of intaglio.