Quick Facts
Biography
Polly Morgan (born 1980) is a London-based British artist who uses taxidermy to create works of art.
Career
Morgan did not plan an art career; she considered becoming an actress after leaving school, but went to university instead. Morgan graduated from Queen Mary, University of London, in English Literature in 2002. During her studies, she worked in Shoreditch Electricity Showrooms, a bar popular with artists; after graduation, she continued to work there as manager. 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. Morgan's first four pieces caught the attention of 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'. In 2005, he commissioned her to produce work for Santa's Ghetto, an annual exhibition he organised near London's Oxford Street. Her next piece, a white rat curled up in a shallow champagne glass, was exhibited at Wolfe Lenkiewicz's Zoo Art Fair in
2005. That piece – 'Rest a Little on the Lap of Life' – was purchased before the show opened by Vanessa Branson. Morgan works from a Bethnal Green studio.
In 2009, Morgan sold her flying machine sculpture from the All Visual Arts (AVA) The Age of the Marvelous exhibition for between £85,000 and £95,000 to Thomas Olbricht, a German art collector.
Morgan is a member of the UK Guild of Taxidermists. The animals used in her taxidermy are contributed by vets or pet owners; the animals have died naturally or accidentally, for example they may have been roadkill. Morgan maintains a detailed log of all dead animals in stock.
She is in many collections including the Zabludowicz collection and her magpie on a telephone is in the collection of Amanda Eliasch
Exhibitions
- Still Life After Death, 2006 at Kristy Stubbs Gallery
- The Exquisite Corpse, 2007 at Trinity Church, 1 Marylebone Road
- You Dig the Tunnel, I'll Hide the Soil, 2008 at White Cube
- Mythologies, 2009 at Haunch of Venison
- The Age of the Marvellous, 2009 at All Visual Arts
- Psychopomps, 2010 at Haunch of Venison
- Contemporary Eye: Crossovers, 2010 at Pallant House Gallery
- Passion Fruits, 2011 at ME Collectors Room
- Burials, 2011 at Workshop Venice
- Dead Time, 2011 at Voide, Derry
- Endless Plains, 2012 at All Visual Arts
- 10,000 Hours, 2012 at Kunstmuseum Thurgau
- Foundation/Remains, 2013 at The Office Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
- The Nature of the Beast, 2013 at The New Art Gallery, Walsall
- Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland, 2013 at VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art
- Curiouser and Curiouser, 2014 at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery
- Fates Refrain, 2014 at Robilant + Voena Gallery
- Organic Matters, 2015 at The National Museum of Women in Art
- Dead Animals and the Curious Occurrence of Taxidermy in Contemporary Art, 2016 at David Winton Bell Gallery - Brown University