The British sculptor Polly Morgan has been described as “Britart’s hottest property’” by the Independent Newspaper and her radical contribution to modern taxidermy has resulted in a shift in public perception about the Victorian practice of stuffing dead animals. Morgan’s work marks a dramatic break with the preened and stuffed creatures in glass vitrines of centuries past. Her creatures are taken out of their natural habitat and enter into surrealist compositions where, in death, they possess a compelling, disquieting beauty. Often Morgan employs incongruous ready-mades such as a phone receiver in her work, heightening the sense of macabre wit.
Previous exhibitions have considered the themes of disintegration, re-composition, death and burial, showcasing Morgan’s extraordinary talent for transporting her subjects, and her viewer, to new places. Evidently Morgan is an artist who is constantly making new enquiries into composition and pushes the limits of where she and others have been before, often with unexpected results. Despite the darkness inherent within her subject matter and choice of material Morgan’s work also touches upon the lighter themes of hope, renewal and memory. There is a strong sense of duality at the core of Morgan’s practice displaying at once the traditional and the contemporary; Victorian curiosities and modern ethics; that which is beautiful and sinister; and finally desperation in the face of death and simultaneously the extraordinary wonder of the natural world and each living thing. As Memonto Mori, Morgan’s pieces encourage us treat every day as if it were our last and everything around us with renewed respect and admiration.
Morgan closely adheres to the legislations of the Guild of Taxidermists, which among other things, protect animal rights. The artist only uses road causalities or animals donated by their owners after natural or unpreventable causes. Morgan was born in England in 1980 and is based in London. In 2005 she studied the art under George Jamieson and has subsequently forged a personal art practice founded on its technical conventions. Her work is shown internationally and recent exhibitions have included ‘Psychopomps’ (solo) at Haunch of Venison, 2010 following her first successful solo show with the gallery in 2009, ‘Still Birth’ (solo) at Other Criteria 2010, an important group exhibition, ‘Contemporary Eye: Crossover,’ Pallant House Gallery, 2010, which also included work by Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, the Chapmans and Grayson Perry. Her work features in numerous collections including the Thomas Olbricht Collection, the Anita Zabludowicz Collection and the David Roberts Art Foundation Workshop.
