Emily Mayer who sadly passed away in April 2022, developed a methodology for sculpture that bifurcated between repurposed materials in figurative assemblages and employing innovative taxidermy techniques to create sculptures of animals and birds.
In 1986 Emily attended Norwich School of Art studying Fine Art Sculpture BA (Hons). Her work preceded that of artists like Damien Hirst and Dorothy Cross. She introduced taxidermy to sculptural production and changed perceptions of what ‘natural’ could be in sculpture. As her career developed she was fabricating sculptures for artists like Hirst, honing her skills on larger animals and developing extraordinary techniques like erosion moulding.
She returned time and again to found and recycled objects to create her work, using traditional construction techniques. A piece of rubber inner tube or the vice-like plastic clamp from a work bench trick the eye into believing the appearance of a wing or a webbed foot, but it is the angle of a head or the sharp accuracy of a plumbing tool for a beak that sets Emily’s distinctive touch.
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