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Polly Morgan is British and lives and works in London. She was born in 1980 and began working as an artist in October 2005. A love of animals and desire to preserve them led her to learn taxidermy, under the tutelage of taxidermist George Jamieson. Since then she has gravitated towards making still lives with the animal as subject.
Her intention has never been to mimic the natural habitats of animals, as they are traditionally displayed, but to place them in less expected scenery. The scale and settings are often unnatural, but the animals are never anthropomorphised. Seeing them out of place encourages us to look at them as if for the first time; a rat sheds its association with horror and disease and can be rightly viewed as a beautiful animal.
Her first show was the unveiling of four phantasmagorical belljars, commissioned by Bistrotheque, on August 3rd 2005. Since then, with T1+2 artspace, she has shown ‘Rest a Little on the Lap of Life’, which featured a white rat curled up in a champagne-bowl glass and topped with a miniature crystal chandelier, in London Zoo Art Fair
(Oct 2005). She took part in ‘Santa’s Ghetto’, the Banksy curated group show alongside artists David Shrigley, Chris Cunningham and Jamie Hewlett in December 2005.
She has contributed work to the debut show of Laz Inc gallery (8 Greek St W1) and is currently showing in their second group show, ‘Stench’, that runs until the end of September 2006.
She was represented by T1+2 artspace at the Chicago Art Fair in May 2006 and has made three site specific pieces for this years’ exhibition at Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds, Reconstruction # 1. The show, curated by Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst (Gagosian London) and Elliot McDonald (Hiscox Art Projects), follows the success of the inaugural ‘Vertigo’, which featured artists Damien Hirst and Angus Fairhurst. It runs until October 31st 2006.
Recent events include exhibiting at a group show at Bonhams (September 21st-24th 2006), with T1+2 at Zoo Art Fair (October 13-15th 2006) and in the Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall Galleries (November 16-26th 2006).
She is currently working towards solo shows in Dallas, Texas, (Kristy Stubbs gallery - March 2007) and London (Spring 2007) as well as a piece for an exhibition at the ICA (Autumn 2007) inspired by the work of Edgar Allen Poe, curated by Harland Miller.
All work so far exhibited has sold to major collectors.
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