Polly Morgan: Psychopomps

Polly Morgan makes her living stuffing animals into bell-jars. Before you call PETA—she’s a trained taxidermist, who creates fantastical, surreal and darkly humorous sculptures out of creatures she finds dead from accidental or natural causes. Though there’s an archly decorative bent to her work, her sculptures make a definitive departure from the staged, pseudo-naturalistic form typical of the art form. Birds sleep beneath tiny chandeliers, rats curl up in champagne flutes and Dalí’s lobster phone is updated via an upside-down pigeon. Any ick factor is balanced by the sheer thrill of Morgan’s ingenuity—who else, after all, could make a pretty vase arrangement of preserved birds on sticks? First spotted by street art prankster Banksy in 2005, Morgan has famous fans in Kate Moss and Courtney Love, but it’s taken until now for her to mount her first solo show at Haunch of Venison, London, entitled Psychopomps and opening July 21. Below, she shares her thoughts on the upcoming exhibition: