....Polly Morgan is at the very forefront of modern taxidermy. She has contributed to a shift in public perception that has taken ‘the art of preparing, stuffing and mounting the skins of animals with lifelike effect’ to places never dreamed of by its original Victorian practitioners. The vitrines are still there but little else remains. Birds are taken out of their natural habitat and are reassembled, often in mass, creating sculptures of astonishing and often disquieting beauty. For ‘Psychopomps’ at Haunch of Venison last year, this theme of disintegration and recomposition was keenly explored. ‘Burials’ takes this idea to its logical end, interment and then potential rebirth elsewhere. ‘The coffin’ (Carrion Call), with its shrieking chicks, makes a welcome return, this time transported to the dimly-lit backroom of a Venetian palazzo; Count Dracula’s transportation of his own coffins from Transylvania to Carfax Abbey in London, performs an almost perfect reverse. A sense of imprisonment and the futility of escape dominates this exhibition, escape is actually, both metaphorically and physically, an unlikely possibility. Three new-style works adorn the walls, in the shapes of a spade, a coffin-lid and a headstone respectively. Other large-scale pieces that further celebrate the themes of rebirth and spring are also included in the form of an ancient (much twisted) maypole and a scorched flying machine held aloft by flame-orange finches and canaries. Polly Morgan 'Burials,' her first solo show in Italy, is on view until July 22 at the Workshop Arte Contemporanea in Venice - www.workshopvenice.com