CEDAR FALLS - O-rings, zippers, plastic washers and keys sound like things you'd find in the bottom of a junk drawer.

For mixed media artist Cat Chow, these common hardware items are as important as paint and palette to an oil painter. She links the O-rings to form chains. Plastic washers join to create a clinky party dress, perhaps never to be worn. Long industrial zippers are coiled into a form-fitting dress, the end trailing off into oblivion. Hundreds of keys are reclaimed on a steel ring with the succint title "Keeper."

"The materials draw me," says Chow, whose nickname "Cat" is short for Catherine. "There are statements I want to make, concepts I want to explore. My materials are important to me, but I'm not limited by them."

A retrospective exhibition of Chow's sculpture and wearable art, "Love Me or Die," is on display at the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art, now through Sept. 20. At 34, her work has been shown in exhibitions around the world and she has won such prestigious awards as the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award as an emerging, innovative artist. Her work is included in the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Combining her sense of design, skill at technical craft, an artist's eye and a penchant for mathematics, Chow's work makes simple hardware seductive and visually striking because she accepts the material at face value and uses it to her own ends, rather than bending, melting or remaking it into another form. She challenges viewers to discard their assumptions and take a second, closer look.

"Sometimes I surprise myself with how something turns out," the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist says, smiling. "If I see a material I like, I have to find a way to use it. There is post-minimalism in my work, the idea that less is more. There is an interactive quality, and I see myself as a social commentator and a philosopher."

Several of Chow's most striking pieces are shown in the collection, including "36 chambers," an installation that features a series of discs decoratively wrapped in plastic wrap that glitter like glass or silver, held inside cages constructed with twisted nylon horsehair. Another larger installation features reclaimed record dies dangling from brass chains. Tightly coiled leather belts look like 33 rpm vinyl records and are titled "Studio Recordings."

What elicits the most comments is the full-length gown, "Not for Sale," constructed from 1,000 dollar bills Chow collected from friends and acquaintances. She shredded the bills and then reconnected the pieces to form the dress, asking the question, 'Is it worth more or less than $1,000? Does the value change?" A closer look reveals George Washington's eyes gazing out from the center seam.

The exhibition is part of a relationship that has formed between Chow and the university. She presented a fabrication workshop on campus in 2007, which lead to the solo art exhibition and Chow's work on the November Theatre UNI production, "Marat/Sade: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade." Chow will create original costumes for the show, co-directed by Jay Edelnant & Gwendolyn Schwinke.