Cameron Park

Kelly-Ann Lees - Pit Pony (Tiger)

2023, Corten sheet metal.

Lake Macquarie Urban and Public Art Collection.
Located in front of the Sugar Valley Library Museum, Portland Drive, Cameron Park.

Horses and ponies are iconic animals often represented as heroic figures effortlessly plunging into battle with a conquering warrior astride them. However, these animals have played a vital and perhaps underappreciated role in mines around the world as beasts of burden and on occasion as saviours of the miners, intimately knowing the mine layout and leading them to safety.

Much beloved by the miners that worked with them, ‘Pit Pony (Tiger)’, seeks to celebrate the quiet heroism of the mining horse and the role they played as colleagues, comfort and companionship to miner’s deep underground, a true connection to the land and light above. The sculpture includes industrial and mechanical historic objects like cogs, tools and wheels to create a link between the past and the future of mining.

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