'There's space enough for all of us' chalk mural promotes inclusion

The 19-year-old artist and a troupe of friends and her sisters Angela and Rachel, have created a chalk mural outside the National Museum of Australia.

The text driven mural was created over three days from and says "there is space enough for all of us".

"I came up with this idea to fill up an entire road with chalk drawing. I said on my TikTok if this video gets a million views I would do it, and that video got almost 6 million views," Pengilly says.

"I started doing the chalk art on the road and then half way through sketching it out, the owners contacted us and said although we had permission to be there - they weren't really happy with the media coming over to their road."

However, Pengilly was determined to see her project come to fruition.

"We put this massive call out to Canberra to see if anyone had a big slab of concrete or a road and the National Museum of Australia reached out to us."

"We're trying to promote diversity and inclusion especially since Canberra has been on lockdown for so long we've lost contact with each other."

"We want to reiterate that there's space enough for all of us on the earth."

Pengilly has only done chalk art for three years, and she said she normally does her work on smaller blackboards.

This is the first large outdoor piece she has created. Most of her work is digital, focusing on portraits.

"I work for a lot of different companies and I do commissions," she says.

"I have been recognised by a lot of different celebrities such as [makeup influencer] James Charles and I've done digital drawings for them and they've reached out."

As for artistic inspirations, Pengilly says she's looked to other artists on social media.

"I haven't done a lot of art school. I don't have specific people from the art world that I draw off."

"I really like specific artists like [the late] Qinniart, I really like her style and the colour schemes - the pastel colours she uses."

"That's where I've drawn inspiration for using pastels [in this mural]."

Pengilly is aware of the influence she has as a young artist with a large social media following and wants to use her platform for social good.

"I think it's really important to put the message that I have in [this work]," she says.

"I have a really big platform and presence on social media - about 600,000 at the moment."

"I don't just want to do a chalk mural that someone will find interesting or entertaining.

"If I'm going to have a big platform and a voice to speak out i may as well use it to promote the a great message."

While this is a message of community that should remain with us for some time, the chalk artwork itself is ephemeral.

By design, the mural will be removed from the National Museum by the end of this week.

It may disappear before our eyes if it rains.

Pengilly says that she would be interested in doing more large scale outdoor work across Canberra if the opportunity presented itself.

She encourages Canberrans to make use of areas that could be used for chalk murals.

They can also contact her on her Instagram account or on her Facebook page if they are interested in commissioning a mural.

To see more of Rachel's work, or for commissions, go to her Instagram account @pengoart or her Facebook Page PengoArt.

You can also see more of her progress on her TikTok account, @pengoart.