A quirky art installation made by local artist Ken Allen has found its home in an Earthwise tree, providing visitors to the community space with a warm welcome. Dubbed ‘Peg’, the ‘unipegacorn’ is essentially a cross between a unicorn and mythical Pegasus.
In an impressive display of ‘up-cycling’, Peg is made entirely of plastic from the Tamala Park tip, with notable pieces including five car headlights making up the thighs, a kids plastic bike and handle of a leaf blower as the head and plant pots for its mane. Ken told us that when sculptures are made of plastic, he calls them “semi-permanent”, as they need to be restored every year or so. Luckily, when working with plastic, it’s often an easy fix!
Sporting a rainbow of colours in its mane and tail, Peg is an ode to the importance of togetherness in our community. Ken created the piece as a response to the disconnectedness we all felt (and are still feeling) in the age of COVID-19, in an effort to get people out and about, and once again feeling a sense of belonging.
“It represents taking flight out of COVID-19 and bringing the community back together again.”
Earthwise is covered in unique artwork, with the front yard displaying two robot looking sculptures made of old metal pieces, as well as a hoisted plastic dragon as a centrepiece. Ken created the latter piece in the 1990s and restored it in early 2020.
Peg is hoisted up in the iconic Ice Cream Bean Tree out the back of Earthwise. Although it sounds like a nickname, it’s in fact the tree’s real name, called so because it produces edible beans that taste just like vanilla ice cream. If you ask the staff at Earthwise nicely, they might even give you a taste!
Earthwise
315 Bagot Road, Subiaco
Mon-Wed & Fri-Sat, 9am-3pm; Thurs 9am-4pm
http://earthwisewa.org/
0413 842 372
