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!"#$%&'#($)(*) BART JANSEN
Like tattoos, there’s a commemorative aspect to taxidermy that has led many to memorialise their dearly departed pets. But Dutch artist, Bart Jansen, wasn’t content to merely have a static reminder of his late cat, Orville. In 2012, the full-time solar panel installer and aviation enthusiast – he named his cat after one of the Wright brothers – hit upon a novel alternative after Orville’s passing: give it the taxidermy treatment and turn it into a drone. While the cat-as-helicopter concept might strike some as outlandish, it’s inspired Jansen to other feats, namely, a badger submarine and a one-person aircraft in the shape of a large animal.
SARINA BREWER
Mythology is rife in creatures of unconventional proportions and appendages – the perfect source of inspiration for taxidermists with a reconstitutive bent. Sarina Brewer is an artist and naturalist who counts herself as one of the inspired. Tapping into her acute interest in biology, she creates hyper-detailed pieces that seem to hark back to some ancient fairy tale. This particular one, ‘Capricorn’, takes its cues from the astrological sign and is composed of the head and upper body of a mountain goat, and the lower body and tail of a fish. What look like pigeon wings are artistic liberties taken by her.
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B I S C H O F F ’ S TA X I D E R M Y & ANIMAL FX
The average person’s access to taxidermy is, for the most part, limited. More often than not, it’s in movies that most people get to see an ‘artified’ dead animal. It’s for this express purpose that this Los Angeles enterprise exists. Providing props and animal stunt doubles for Hollywood offerings has been this firm’s mission from day one, and it’s never failed to deliver. The crow perpetually perched on Johnny Depp’s head in The Lone Ranger is their handiwork, as are the animals in the following music videos: Katy Perry’s “Roar”, Rilo Kiley’s “Portion Of Foxes” and Queens Of The Stone Age’s “The Vampyre Of Time And Memory”.
P O L LY MORGAN
The fantastical, utterly surreal creations by this London-based artist belie the fact that she never planned on making a career out of decorating animal carcasses. After graduating from Queen Mary University Of London, with a degree in English literature, Morgan planned on becoming an actress before a change of heart took over. Clearly, all was not lost. So gifted is she that even her earliest pieces caught the attention of one Banksy. Over the years, her aesthetic has only gotten more stylish and sophisticated and this work, titled, ‘Harbour’, is reflective of her knack for melding together very unseemly elements.
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