Gyotaku is a Japanese fish-printing art form dating to the early 1800s, where a fisherman's real catch is inked and pressed onto rice paper to record its exact size and detail. Harley Van Hyning, known as Gnarly Harley, has spent the last decade turning that centuries-old method into a full-time career, painting and printing everything from small reef fish to a 1,145-pound blue marlin, working in acrylics and color on canvas and linen instead of the traditional black sumi ink. On this episode, he tells Tom Rowland how his mother's formal art training, a childhood of surf fishing on the Florida panhandle, and a chance encounter with a dockside artist turned into Gnarly Harley Fish Prints.
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Gyotaku is a printing method that began in Japan in the early 1800s, when fishermen recorded their catches using rice paper and black sumi ink pressed directly onto the fish. Harley Van Hyning uses a non-traditional version of the form, working with acrylics and color on different weights of canvas and linen instead of the original black-ink-and-rice-paper method.
Gnarly Harley is the working name of Harley Van Hyning, a Florida panhandle-based Gyotaku artist who paints and prints real fish, from small reef species to record-class billfish, directly onto canvas. He grew up surf fishing around Destin and Navarre Beach and has been painting and printing fish for about ten years.
He prepares the fish dockside, applies paint directly to it, lays canvas over the fish, and does a meticulous rub that captures the size, details, and imperfections of that individual fish. Conditions matter: a freshly caught fish in the shade with some humidity gives the best results, while a fish that is too cold or too warm can keep the medium from adhering the way he wants.
In 2023 he did a head print of a 1,145-pound blue marlin caught out of Orange Beach, Alabama, helping a fellow artist and friend, Craig Brumfield, who had been called out to paint the fish and needed extra canvas on hand.
He studied the art form in school as part of art history classes, then bought a reproduction print from a local dockside artist named Fred Fiser after moving to the Florida panhandle in 2013. He started painting and printing fish on his own and got obsessed with combining his love of art with his lifelong love of fishing and the ocean.
Harley takes commission requests through Instagram and Facebook under Gnarly Harley and Gnarly Fish Prints. He can print a fish someone has already caught, or travel to meet someone dockside when they land a catch worth printing.
I am a fan of his work, and once I saw what he was doing with Gyotaku I wanted to hear the whole story behind it, not just see the finished pieces. Combining real fish with real art, in a technique that goes back two hundred years, is not something I had seen anyone else doing at this level, and I wanted to know how somebody ends up building a career around it.
Harley's mother trained formally in fine art, spending four years at the Brighton School of Art in England and finishing her graduate work at the Royal Academy in central London. Despite that training, she rarely shared her own paintings outside the family. Harley describes that hesitation as common among serious artists, and it clearly shaped how he thinks about putting his own work in front of people. He tells the story of the conversation where he finally convinced her they should show her work together, and it is worth hearing him explain why that mattered to him.
Harley grew up in Destin, born on Eglin Air Force Base, where his father served in special operations as a helicopter flight engineer. Weekends meant surf fishing and pompano fishing at Navarre Beach with his dad before sunrise. He earned a PR and marketing degree at the University of West Florida, ran a tourism podcast for about five years starting in 2006, and then walked away from all of it after his mother told him to stop making t-shirts and focus on painting fish instead.
The process starts dockside with a freshly caught fish, and Harley says the conditions change everything: temperature, humidity, wind, even how long the fish has been on ice all affect how the paint takes to the scales. Getting a full-body print off something the size of a grander marlin is a different animal entirely from a small reef fish, and he walks through exactly what changes about the process at that scale. It is worth hearing him describe it firsthand.
A friend and fellow artist, Craig Brumfield, got the call to paint a grander blue marlin out of Orange Beach and needed extra canvas, so Harley drove out to help and ended up doing his own head print of the fish. He describes the scale of that fish, down to what was inside its stomach when the crew opened it up, and it is a story that is better heard in his own words than summarized here.
After a decade of Gyotaku work, Harley says he has developed what he calls a photographic memory for fish anatomy — the way a wahoo's dorsal fin shortens as the fish gets bigger, or how a redfish's head shape changes with size. He has also noticed changes in what he is seeing on the water over the years, from fish size to which species show up as often as they used to.
What I liked most about this conversation is how naturally Harley's two loves, art and the ocean, ended up becoming one career. He did not force fishing and painting together; he just kept following what he actually cared about until they combined on their own.
If you want to see his work or commission a piece, go find Gnarly Harley on Instagram.
Harley Van Hyning (Gnarly Harley), Craig Brumfield, Fred Fiser, University of West Florida, Georgia College, Brighton School of Art, Royal Academy (London).
Harley Van Hyning, known professionally as Gnarly Harley, is a Gyotaku fish print artist based on the Florida panhandle near Destin. He has spent roughly a decade painting and printing real fish onto canvas and linen using acrylics and color, ranging from small reef species to a 1,145-pound blue marlin, and takes commissions through Gnarly Harley Fish Prints.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 982/983, with guest Harley Van Hyning (Gnarly Harley). Lightly edited for clarity and readability; sponsor-read segments removed. This transcript covers the opening, middle, and closing portions of the conversation.
Harley Van Hyning: I'm Harley Van Hyning, aka Gnarly Harley, and this is the Tom Rowland Podcast.
Tom Rowland: Gnarly Harley, what's happening, man? I'm glad to have you on here — I'm a fan of your work. Tell me about getting into art. It sounded like your mom was into art, and you started thinking about art at a young age, but then maybe got down a different road for a bit. What's your story with art?
Harley Van Hyning: My mother is originally from London, and she went to art school — the first four years at the Brighton School of Art, then her graduate schooling at the Royal Academy in central London. She's had a lot of formal art training and education in fine art, with realism, hyper-realism really. She's painted buildings with meticulous bricks, seascapes, portraits, birds, fish, creatures.
Harley Van Hyning: My mother is like a musician who is sort of in a closet — a little shy to share her work, and yet it's extraordinary. That's so common with artists. I think that's why so many are discovered after they're gone. My mother hasn't had to work, because my father did well enough to support us, and my parents always thought it was important to have someone at home when I came from school. She's painted in her free time, done some small commissions, but mostly painted whatever inspired her. We've talked about doing a show together, because I want to get her work out there — I get everything I know about art from her.
Harley Van Hyning: Growing up, my parents took me to art galleries and festivals, and my mother painted regularly in her own art room. I took art classes through middle and high school, but I also naturally took to art without any introduction — in kindergarten, other kids would play with toys and I'd be drawing. When it came time to decide on an art career or art college, I hit a crossroads, because I never wanted art to be ruined by turning it into a job. My guidance counselor told me artists don't really make money, so I ended up getting a PR degree instead, which let me stay creative through writing and marketing while working in an industry I loved.
Harley Van Hyning: I went to the University of West Florida in Pensacola. I was born and raised in Destin, born at Eglin Air Force Base. My father was special ops with the 20th — he was a flight engineer on the Pave Hawks, doing reconnaissance and rescue missions. We stayed right in that area growing up. My parents actually moved back to the UK for eight years starting in 2008.
Harley Van Hyning: Toward the end of college, I started doing a podcast for tourism and travel here — that was back in 2006, and I did that for about five years. Then I decided to go my own independent path, started a lifestyle brand, and began experimenting with Gyotaku, making shirts. I showed my mother what I was doing, and she told me to stop with the shirts and do more of the fish art. So I started painting all the fish I could get my hands on, left the podcast and the lifestyle brand behind, and realized I loved art more than podcasting.
Tom Rowland: Tell me about the first time you saw this art form and tried it yourself.
Harley Van Hyning: I first learned about Gyotaku in art history classes growing up. Then when I bought my place in 2013, I needed some artwork, and there was an older local artist named Fred Fiser at the seafood festival here who had a reproduction print of a tarpon. I got that piece, and basically got obsessed with painting and printing fish after that. As a kid I was always outside, watching Nat Geo and Discovery Channel, riding my bike to the docks. It's always been a love for fish and the ocean, and the art form brought all of that together.
Harley Van Hyning: The art form originally comes from Japan, where fishermen recorded their catches in the early 1800s using rice paper and black sumi ink. I've experimented with that, but I work non-traditionally, using acrylics and color on different weights of canvas and linen. Say you catch a 50-pound mahi — I come down to the dock, prepare the fish, apply paint to it, lay down the canvas, and do a very in-depth, meticulous rub that captures the size, the details, and the imperfections of that fish. Sometimes I use unnatural colors like blue on a snapper, and other times I capture the natural coloring and details. Doing this in an uncontrolled dockside environment means the wind, sun, humidity, and temperature of the fish all affect the consistency of the medium and the outcome of the print.
Harley Van Hyning: Prime conditions are a freshly caught fish, in the shade, with some humidity, which actually helps. If a fish is too cold from being on ice for hours, the medium won't stick well. If it's too warm, it can adhere too fast in an undesirable way, so you have to work fast to pull off all the details.
Tom Rowland: You've done some really big things. What's the biggest fish you've been able to print?
Harley Van Hyning: The biggest was in 2023, a grander blue marlin caught out in the Gulf of Mexico off Orange Beach, weighing 1,145 pounds. A friend of mine and fellow artist, Craig Brumfield, got called to paint that fish and needed some extra canvas, so I drove out to help him. While I was there, I asked if I could get a head print of it — I didn't have time to do the full body, but it was a massive fish. When they opened up its stomach, there was a small swordfish inside along with other things that had mostly decayed.
Harley Van Hyning: After about ten years of doing this, I have what I'd call a photographic memory for fish — I remember the differences in species, size, and characteristics. For example, the bigger a wahoo gets, the shorter its dorsal fin gets relative to the body. I've paid a lot of attention to fish anatomy because my end goal isn't just a perfect print, but knowing every detail when I go back in to bring the piece back to life with paint. I've also noticed changes over the years in what's being caught — not seeing as many big fish, or certain species showing up less than they used to.
Harley Van Hyning: Most of the fish I've painted internationally has been tied to surfing. A friend of mine, Shane Reynolds, was hired to produce content for a surf charter, and there were open slots on the boat, so I went along. We did handline fishing off the back of the boat and pulled up small giant trevally and a yellow and blue grouper, one of the most beautiful species I've ever seen, in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. On that trip I caught my first wahoo handlining, around 45 pounds, and printed it right afterward before going surfing — one of the best days of my life.
Tom Rowland: If people want to connect with you, see your work, or commission something, what should they do?
Harley Van Hyning: The best way to reach me for commissions is through Instagram, Gnarly Harley, or Facebook, Gnarly Fish Prints. I've printed everything from marlins to small reef fish, and I'm open to commissions whether someone has already caught something or wants me to travel to meet them — say they're marlin fishing in Cabo, or even Hawaii, or right here in Destin. Just reach out and we'll get it dialed into whatever you want created.
Tom Rowland: This has been a great interview, Harley. I appreciate it, man.
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