Robilant+Voena is proud to present a solo exhibition of new works by the British artist Polly Morgan, “Fate's Refrain”, which will be held at our gallery from the 25th February-31st March.

The work of this young artist who specialises in taxidermy, is being shown coinciding with the final days of the “Wünderkammer” exhibition at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum and Gallerie d'Italia. Fascinated by the animal world since childhood, Polly Morgan studied with the Scottish taxidermist George Jamieson and became a member of the British Guild of Taxidermists. Unlike traditional taxidermists she never mimics the natural habitats of animals but places them in a discordant setting, with the aim of causing the viewer to reflect on themes of life and death. Therefore these works are strongly symbolic in addition to their scientific elements.

All the animals used are either casualties of the roads or have been donated to the artist by pet owners and vets, and in a sense their transformation through taxidermy becomes a sort of rebirth.

Born in 1980, Polly Morgan owes the beginning of her artistic career to a chance encounter with Bansky, at a bar called the Electricity Show Room, where she had taken a job after reading English Literature at London University. This bar was a favourite amongst Young British Artists at the time, such as Damien Hirst.

Bansky was in fact her first sponsor and in 2005 he suggested that she exhibit some of her works in his Gallery, “Santa's Ghetto”.

Recently some of her pieces have entered important collections such as those of Thomas Olbricht and Omer Koç and she can boast of personal exhibitions held at internationally famous galleries such as Haunch of Venison.

Described by The Independent as the most sought after British artist at the moment, her work has been given brilliant reviews by notable art magazines, such as Artforum, and some of the most important European newspapers such as the Financial Times, the Sunday Times and The Guardian, which on 13th January 2014 reviewed her exhibition “Historias Naturales” at the Prado and described her as a “rising star”.