‘Dead animal art’ stuffs taxidermy into work that actually sells

Making macabr0e art: Zijlstra with one of her works, a stuffed mouse, in her studio. Photos: AFP

In a loft in a disused school in The Hague, Dutch artist Noortje Zijlstra takes a frozen crow carcass from a refrigerator and cuts it open, pursuing her latest “dead animal art” project. Wearing surgical gloves, Zijlstra gingerly cuts into the dead bird’s breastbone before going on to remove most of its insides.

“This is what I do. I take its ‘jacket’ off and use it as my medium for art. As soon as that happens, it ceases to be a dead animal,” Zijlstra says as she slices away at the defrosting bird with a razor-sharp scalpel.