Featured Folk Art? Big Wonderful Carved Wood Unicorn Head w/Elvis Sneer, Flaring Nostrils, Branches for Mane

I found this piece at a thrift store today & liked it as soon as I saw it! I've never seen anything like it before - but searching it I can't find any artist signature or any mark?

It has nicely carved flaring nostrils and I swear my first thought seeing that sneer was Elvis!

Has anyone seen anything like this? What should I call it; folk art?

Thanks - hope you liked it, too!

 

My guess,
A funky 60s-70s Cypress knee sculpture..?
Tho I don't know what the darker wood on the base or for the horn might be.
Very fun sculpture and has to be one of a kind. No two exactly alike if others were made.

 

A bit newer, I'd think. Touch-tone phones weren't commonplace until the 1980s. And the unicorn craze came even a bit later.

Debora

 

Thanks - I know Cypress but going to look up Cypress knee (guessing like a root or where a branch shoots off in a different direction?)
Thank you!

 

Unicorns were a big deal design-wise in the mid-1980s. They keep coming back around, but this kind of looks 80s to me.

 

Well, there you go. Consensus 1980s-ish.

Debora

 

I keep wondering what he would look like without the horn... but I'm scared I'll hurt it, so going to sell it as is - and with Art Basil coming I may be able to sell it; but no idea what it's worth. Can it be called folk art?

 

Art Basel not basil. Much more high brow

 

your right Mark London - sheesh. One good thing is my dad has a club in S Beach and he told me I can use it during the day during Art Basel when it's closed to try to sell some of my paintings!
I can call this folk art right?
Thanks again for the correction; that could be embarrassing!

 

No it is not folk art.

 

It's a funky beast, but to be honest I'm not even sure I'd call it art.