TAXIDERMY A S ART
| CW
the chest area and then the skin is teased away from the flesh so that the body can be removed intact. Anything that would rot – muscle, flesh, fat, brain, and eyes – has to go. After a series of washes to clean and preserve the skin, the taxidermist recreates the body. Wire can be used to shape a replacement skeleton and body forms are fashioned out of any suitable material, which includes wood shavings, balsa wood, fibreglass, Styrofoam, clay or papier-mâché. Preformed body shapes and false eyes
“FOR TOO LONG TAXIDERMY HAS BEEN THE ‘GUILTY SECRET’ OF A FEW MISUNDERSTOOD PRACTITIONERS AND COLLECTORS.” made of resin are available from specialist suppliers. Birds, which Morgan often uses, require parts of the skeleton, such as the skull (emptied of all matter), the beak, the feet, the leg and wing bones, to be preserved. As can be imagined, the work requires diligence, patience and considerable manual dexterity. The effort that goes into tiny chicks, one of her favourite “models”, is amazing. Given the complexity of her creations, they often take many months to finish. Even though she acknowledges that the art world is “elitist” (her description), the amount of craft and skill required to make her pieces goes a long way to justifying their prices. Morgan uses assistants to help create her artworks, but still does a large part of the taxidermy work herself. In her foreword to The Art of Taxidermy (Pavilion Books, 2012) by Jane Eastoe, a superbly illustrated analysis of the practice from its earlier days to the contemporary art scene, Morgan admits that taxidermy, until recently, was seen as “a dying art”. She now sees it as “an evolving art”. “I hope the work I do, and of the other artists working in a similar vein, can ensure the survival of taxidermy by giving it a place in modern life,” she wrote. “Just as photography put an end to the commissioning of painted portraits, so zoos, high-definition video
and cheap travel have seen the redundancy of many taxidermists, originally employed to educate us in natural history. Painting has survived, developing from figuration to abstraction, and so taxidermy must make similar shifts if it is to be considered the art I believe it is… For too long taxidermy has been the ‘guilty secret’ of a few misunderstood practitioners and collectors.” above; In Habour, from 2012, Morgan has combined a taxidermy fox and birds with a silicone-cast octopus. right: Morgan used hand-painted crow femurs, cast from a resin called jesmonite, for this structure from 2013, Picking Progress To Pieces. below: 2012’s The Fall uses mixed media – fibreglass-cast tree, silicone-cast piglets and taxidermy birds.
www.christopherward.co.uk
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