“I just can’t throw anything away,” says Madelon Vriesendorp. “I would feel so guilty chucking out all this beautiful milky plastic.” The Dutch artist is standing near a row of plastic milk bottles that, during the pandemic lockdowns, she sliced, spliced and manipulated to create a mysterious cast of characters, now lit from below like precious objects in a museum. One resembles an African tribal mask, with a furrowed brow and shock of wiry hair. Another has the air of a bossy teacher, a pair of handles forming the shape of hands on hips. A third looks like a Japanese warlord (although Vriesendorp insists it is a French nun carrying a handbag). “If they are eventually thrown away,” she quips, “at least the fish will have something nice to look at.”
