Columbus, OH
3/05/10 2:41 PM
Working under the pseudonym C.K. Vindaloo, Kristin Nortz makes work whose ingredients are true to her moniker: heat, spice and cliché. From scintillating maroon feathers to cute little bunnies, a red hot heat lamp, and a plump, cleaved peach, Nortz presents the materials of seduction in coy configurations that comment wittily on superficial states of love and lust, desire and destiny. Containment features repeatedly, from cages to bell jars, and the lesson seems to be that Hallmark relationships add up to little more than limitations, be they physical or emotional. Found object collage is a nifty way to learn the moral of Nortz’s love story — what else, after all, are candy box relationships based on if not pre-existing notions of romance and affection, attraction and excitement? When it really gets interesting is when the bunnies get uncaged and hop away, the feathers melt under the heat lamp, the heart breaks out of all three layers of its bell jar, and the peach rolls off its silky pillow and out the door.
—Lori Waxman