Usually, a plastic item can take up to about 1,000 years to decompose. They are one of the most stubborn and lasting environmental pollutions. In one painting titled “Waiting for the Owner,” the artist depicts a pink dolphin toy that she saw again and again by a pond whenever she passed by. It was left and stayed there, as if waiting for something or someone. Its lasting presence contrasts with the shorter lifespans of human lives combined, represented by various numbers in the painting’s background.

Our world’s plasticity cannot be more pronounced in one of Kolab’s works titled “Collection,” in which reality and illusion conflate. From a distance, the painting seems to depict a shoal of colourful, semi-translucent fish gracefully swimming in the peaceful, deep blue water. At a closer look, however, they are actually plastic bags. In another work, “Float,” humans, as well as animals, birds, and marine lives, are tied to and suspended by a sheer amount of floating plastic bags filled with black gas blanketing the sky. The humans appear not bothered but instead occupied with their mobile devices.

Affected by personal experience and global phenomena, Kolab uses storytelling to paint a picture of a world where humans, animals, and nature are trapped and suffocated by plastic. The delightfully captivating yet illusive quality of Kolab’s paintings raises questions on do we want to live and get lost in this colourful plastic world? And to whom and how many generations we want to pass on this “heirloom”?