Art and science are often considered to be mutually exclusive spheres – a person can generally be categorised as one or the other – but Dr Lindsay Marshall is one of a rare breed that embodies both in equal measures.

Dr Marshall is the illustrator of the book 'Rays of the World' by CSIRO press.

As an artist she has an eye for form and colour, a skillful hand and love of painting and creating. As a scientist studying her PhD in Marine Biology, she has an in depth knowledge and fascination of aquatic creatures. Her portraits of fish, sharks, rays and other marine life are exquisitely detailed and biologically accurate, yet imbued with a warmth, life and character. Lindsay’s love affair with all things underwater began when she went on a diving trip to Exmouth to swim with the whale sharks as a teenager. She’d grown up on the coast, but seeing what was going on beneath the surface made her realise that there’s a lot more to the ocean than waves and beaches. Since then, she’s spent much of her life on, by or under the sea. “I would love to go on a research expedition to investigate and document the fauna of a new area – to be the artist on a trip like that,” she says wistfully. “That would be my dream, to sail away on a research boat and just paint and dive.” Lindsay generally works with acrylic but loves using oil to paint seascapes and capture the movement of the water. She is particularly fond of drawing the weird and wonderful fish that live at the depths of the ocean and her art reveals strange marine creatures that are seldom seen by your average landlubber. Her artistic talent has been put to practical use, drawing and documenting different species. She’s had her work published in various volumes and is often commissioned by other marine researchers to do paintings, drawings and line works to illustrate their findings.

Written by Kate Veling

Lindsay is currently commissioned to paint every species of shark and ray in the world for the Tree of Life project, which is the first time ever that a natural history artist has illustrated the entire Chondrichthyan group (Sharks, Rays and Chimeras), so her work is of particular significance.

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