"Tobiah Mundt: Being"

Tobiah Mundt isn’t here to make friends. “I don’t want to make cutesy things. I don’t want to make toys,” says the artist behind the exhibition “Being.” This statement may seem a little strange, considering that her wool menagerie includes bunnies, pigs, monkeys, bears and camels. But Mundt turns what could be cuddly into something else with grimaces, gaping mouths and anatomic mutations.

Octobunny isn’t just a clever name; the creature’s long ears fold over a furrowed brow, and tentacles extend from a soft, white torso. Lucie is a boar with a red rose in her ear and sharp plastic teeth in her gaping snout. Mundt uses a process known as needle felting, in which she sculpts wool by poking it with a barbed needle. “I like the juxtaposition between the soft, fuzzy wool and the intense expressions,” Mundt says, adding that she’s not trying to make her work threatening. “I don’t set out to make…a mean-looking something. It just sort of happens.” 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Through September 25. Lawndale Art Center, 4912 Main. For information, call 713-528-5858 or visit www.lawndaleartcenter.org. Free.

Mondays-Saturdays. Starts: Aug. 20. Continues through Sept. 25, 2010