Least Concern

Least Concern

Tibbie Dunbar, Ric Heitzman, Brian Mallman, Richard Turner, and Lorraine Heitzman celebrate the extraordinary nature of ordinary, commonplace things. They are inspired by the biodiversity of plants and animals, as well as by the surfeit of manufactured goods. As curated by Lorraine Heitzman, Least Concern encourages us to pay attention to the driftwood washed ashore, the plastic discarded in our streets, and the tools and materials found at work. Through their work, these artists demonstrate that there is value in observing the overlooked things in our natural and man-made environment; we need only to take the time to look and discover the beauty in our midst.

Tibbie Dunbar makes small sculptures fashioned from plastic detritus found on neighborhood walks. Wielding her ironic humor, she crafts delicate curiosities that are as precise as they are inscrutable. Parts of colorful brooms, hairbrushes and containers are reimagined into new forms that bear little relationship to their origins. Dunbar’s sculptures, made from materials that would otherwise be discarded, ask us to reconsider what has value.

Ric Heitzman is showing excerpts from his stop-motion animated film alongside some of the many puppets he created from natural materials. His movie, Radicles, is an imaginative panoply of figures set in foreign landscapes. The puppets, exhibited for the first time, are a diverse cast of characters made from seed pods, kelp, and other botanical sources. Viewed together, Heitzman’s inventive world crafted from unlikely materials suggest a reverence for nature expressed in a most irreverent way.

Brian Mallman builds crude drawing machines that use mechanical means to create abstract images. His kinetic sculptures are loud, messy and fun: power drills dangle and dance from their cords with graphite nibs, and leafy branches are powered by simple gears. Each make marks with results ranging from perfunctory to poetic. Above all, the machines are performative and entertaining as viewers recognize the struggles and haphazard efforts to create.

Richard Turner, a local LA native, deliberately composed photographs are meditations on materials culled from his studio. The obscure objects in his still lifes gain stature as they are memorialized in simple arrangements. There is a tension between the casual nature of the seemingly random objects, and the formality that photography often projects upon its subjects. Turner documents the paraphernalia of his working life and in doing so, turns his materials in their raw state into solemn tributes.

Lorraine Heitzman creates sculptures out of scavenged organic materials, and makes assemblages that combine natural and man-made objects. In both cases she calls attention to the overlooked and discarded things that have little monetary value, but are dear to her heart. In changing the context of a singular piece of driftwood or contrasting tree bark to asphalt tiles, she seeks to emphasize the fundamental qualities of each. Sometimes she alters the surfaces of her materials to enhance the distinct forms, as if to simply say, “Look at this!”

Across different media, including sculpture, photography, and film, the five artists in Least Concern make the case that the most common things around us can be a source of beauty and creativity. Our curiosity about our surroundings is infinite and the more attuned we are to our environment, the more enriched our lives become.

Participating Artists: Tibbie Dunbar, Ric Heitzman, Brian Mallman, Richard Turner, and Lorraine Heitzman

Curator: Lorraine Heitzman