In order to understand how and why Textureprinting was created, here's some history about it's "mother" art form, Gyotaku (ghee-yo-tah-koo) which means fish rubbing.

        Gyotaku was developed in Japan in the early 19th century. In 1862, Lord Sakai, of the Yamagata prefecture caught a large Red Sea Bream, and to immortalize the fish, commissioned prints to be made.
The artist was unknown.

        In the mid 20th century, A Japanese ichthyologist (fish scientist), Yoshio Hiyama, also a master Gyotaku artist, practiced the traditional Gyotaku technique of applying a black soot-based ink to a fish and then printing it on rice paper. In 1952, he shared his fish rubbings with American scientists. Highly detailed, he presented them as a biological archive of Japanese fish species.

        Since then, Gyotaku has evolved into a very different art form. Many artists are printing fish today. Some print on cloth, while others still use rice paper. Many imitate the original colors of the species by applying sumei ink or watercolors in place of the traditional black ink.

        All of these techniques have broad aesthetic appeal and can be very beautiful, however, Mr. Santry noticed problems inherent with these variations and in the original approach that can be limiting when the traditional technique is applied to larger or oddly shaped creatures. -Evidence of this limitation was, that after a diligent worldwide internet search, he could locate only a handful of large, life-sized prints of species such as Marlin or Sailfish. Few were of high quality.

        It is most important to note is that many of these rarely printed species face declining population levels. Under these circumstances, Gyotaku is a questionable means of archiving because a single fish yields a limited amount of prints. Therefore, a typical Gyotaku artist may destroy many fish in order to be prolific. In an ecologically  conservative catch and release environment, the notion of killing fish in order to preserve them is counter productive. Although this observation might not apply to all Gyotaku artists, there are so many printers in the field, that it is a viable concern. Mr. Santry encountered several galleries that would not display Gyotaku for this reason.

        Because these fish were becoming harder to obtain, he felt a sense of urgency that a similar technique be created that would accurately and permanently archive these awesome marine animals, without impacting their population levels.

       In 2002, Regan Santry decided to challenge traditional Gyotaku's limitations. He discovered that by merging modern digital imaging technology with the ancient Gyotaku method, he could create larger, more detailed and durable prints and retrieve many more images per individual fish. By doing this, a third, almost forensic, technique was born. He named this new approach "Textureprinting". After several years of refinement, Mr. Santry has produced a result that may be best described as an articulate "ink fossil".
And to increase the durability and life of the print, the artist utilizes a wide variety of durable, acid proof paper and canvas imprinted with compatible 200 year dyes or inks. Furthermore, he utilizes only a few fish (one or two per species) in order to achieve this.

        All of Mr. Santry's signed and numbered images are available in both giclee and lithographs.