Polly Morgan welcomes us to her home-cum-studio in Hackney Wick that she shares with her two dogs Trotsky and Tony in a characteristically dressed down look, her blonde hair scraped back. She could be an off-duty model on her way to a casting. Morgan has been ‘casting’ today, but of a rather different nature. ‘I’ve been moulding loads of crow bones in jesmonite so I’m covered in the stuff,’ she explains apologetically.

These days you can’t walk into a hipster shop or restaurant without tripping over taxidermy, but back in 2003 bar manager Polly Morgan couldn’t find any she liked so decided to learn how to make it herself. ‘It was a hobby really. Then my friend David Waddington found out what I was doing and asked me to make some pieces for his new bar Bistroteque.’

Her first four works, ‘a lovebird looking in a mirror, a squirrel holding a bell jar with a little fly perched inside on top of a sugar cube, a magpie with a jewel in its beak and a couple of chicks standing on a miniature coffin’ caught the attention of the art world – including Banksy – and soon the exhibitions and commissions were rolling in.

Unlike traditional taxidermy – which tries to make the animal look alive and naturalistic – Morgan’s creatures look distinctly dead, and are placed in unexpected settings making observations about beauty and mortality with a nod to Surrealism. A white rat curls up in a vintage champagne glass referencing Oppenheim’s fur cup, or a magpie perches on the receiver of a Bakelite phone calling to mind Dali’s lobster telephone.

Although she’s been dubbed the ‘taxidermist to the stars’ – Kate Moss, Courtney Love and even Harry Styles are fans – and sells her work for up to £100,000, Morgan is moving away from taxidermy and into casting objects in plaster. ‘I’ve become completely sick of taxidermy. It’s everywhere now and I’m over it. I think it’s good to get bored of your own work before everyone else does and I’m really enjoying making work in a different way now. It was very monotonous sitting at a desk stuffing birds all day.’