Polly Morgan (taxidermist) explained

Polly Morgan
Birth Place:Banbury, Oxfordshire, England
Known For:Taxidermy
Training:George Jamieson, Edinburgh
Notable Works:Rabbit on Hat
For Sorrow
Still Life After Death (fox)
Website:Polly Morgan Website

Polly Morgan (born 1980) is a London-based British artist who uses taxidermy to create works of art.[1] [2] [3]

Biography

Polly Morgan was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire England in 1980,[4] and grew up in the Cotswolds on her family farm, and mentions a lack of squeamishness about death as well as being comfortable with the practice of dealing with the corpses of animals. She moved to East London in 1998 and continues to live there today. Morgan graduated from Queen Mary, University of London, in English Literature in 2002.

During her studies, Morgan worked at Shoreditch Electricity Show Rooms, a bar popular with artists; after graduation, she continued to work there as manager.[5] At 23 Morgan was living above the bar and working out of her apartment, "tinkering with taxidermy."[6] Inspired to create work of her own she took a course with the professional taxidermist George Jamieson, of Cramond, in Edinburgh, during which her intuitive and personal response to the medium were obvious.[3] Morgan's first pieces were commissioned by Bistrotheque, after which she was spotted by Banksy: A lovebird looking in a mirror; a squirrel holding a belljar with a little fly perched inside on top of a sugar cube; a magpie with a jewel in its beak; and a couple of chicks standing on a miniature coffin'.[7] [5] In 2005, he invited her to show her work for Santa's Ghetto, an annual exhibition he organized near London's Oxford Street.[3] Her next piece, a white rat in a champagne glass, was exhibited at Wolfe Lenkiewicz's Zoo Art Fair in 2006 and was purchased by Vanessa Branson.[8] Morgan works from a Bethnal Green studio.

Morgan is a member of the UK Guild of Taxidermists. The animals used in her taxidermy are contributed by a network of clients; the animals Morgan uses have died naturally or had unpreventable deaths. She maintains a detailed log of all dead animals in stock.[9]

Morgan believes that those who consider her work disrespectful or cruel to animals are "childish," and that anthropomorphizing the animals she uses is meaningless. Her work emphasizes and displays animals in a way nontraditional to taxidermy, putting the animals in positions which do not generally imply that they are still alive, rather emphasizing the dying fall of the animal.[10]

Morgan is married to Mat Collishaw with whom she has two sons.[11]

Exhibitions

Notable exhibitions include:[12]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Collinge. Miranda. Polly Morgan's wings of desire. 23 July 2010. The Observer. 18 July 2010.
  2. News: Ryan. Denise. An 'authentic encounter' with the animals. 23 July 2010. Vancouver Sun. 23 October 2009.
  3. News: Death becomes her: Meet Polly Morgan, Britart's hottest property. Philby. Charlotte. 16 July 2010. The Independent. 23 July 2010.
  4. Web site: Biography – Polly Morgan. pollymorgan.co.uk. 2017-03-11.
  5. News: Lane. Harriet. Polly Morgan: dead clever. 23 July 2010. The Telegraph. 5 April 2008.
  6. News: Polly Morgan: death becomes her. Evening Standard. 2018-03-10. en-GB.
  7. News: Praagh. Anna van. The art of taxidermy. 3 August 2010. Financial Times. 9 July 2010.
  8. Web site: TALK: with taxidermy artist Polly Morgan. 2018-03-20. Messums Wiltshire. en-GB. 2019-12-24.
  9. Web site: Morgan. Polly. Introduction to Polly Morgan. Self published. 24 July 2010.
  10. Connor, Steven. "Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on." Modern Painters 21, no. 2 (03, 2009): 58-63. http://stevenconnor.com/stuff/stuff.pdf .
  11. News: Artist Polly Morgan: 'I've got big snakes in the freezer – I chop them up to fit properly' . The Telegraph . 12 February 2023 . Calkin . Jessamy .
  12. Web site: Exhibitions – Polly Morgan. pollymorgan.co.uk. 2018-03-10.
  13. Web site: All Visual Arts - The Age of the Marvellous - Selected Works. www.allvisualarts.org.
  14. Web site: All Visual Arts - Endless Plains - Selected Works. www.allvisualarts.org.
  15. Web site: Kanton Thurgau > Startseite4 . 19 July 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130802040115/http://www.kunstmuseum.tg.ch/xml_38/internet/de/intro.cfm . 2 August 2013 . dead .
  16. Web site: Organic Matters - National Museum of Women in the Arts. nmwa.org.
  17. Web site: Dead Animals, or the curious occurrence of taxidermy in contemporary art. www.brown.edu.
  18. Web site: Upcoming Art Private Sales & Exhibitions | Sotheby's . 1 March 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180314230649/http://www.sothebys.com/en/gallery/s2.html . 14 March 2018 . dead .

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Polly Morgan (taxidermist)".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.