Cowboy is 'world's biggest artwork'

The artist used a hand mower and tractor for the carving

An image of a cowboy ploughed into the semi-arid earth of the Australian outback is the largest work of art in the world, its creator has claimed.

The picture of the cowboy, or stockman, with teeth the size of a football field, has been revealed after four months of secrecy.

Artist Peter Andrew Anderson said he used a hand mower and tractor to draw the figure on the Eldee farming property near the outback mining town of Broken Hill, about 1,100 km (684 miles) west of Sydney.

It actually fits in with the landscape because it is a very big picture and this is a very big country and very big plain

Peter Anderson
Artist

"This is a very complicated work of art and it has taken many months of very tiring work to actually get it to the point where it is now," Mr Anderson told Australia's Nine Network.

The picture, called Eldee Man, is on the Mundi Mundi Plains where the Mad Max 2 movie starring Mel Gibson was filmed, and is best viewed from a light plane at 2,000 metres.

In total, the figure is 2.5 km (1.6 miles) long and 2.2 km (1.4 miles) wide.

It is hoped the design will boost tourism to the remote region.

Extraterrestrials

"It actually fits in with the landscape because it is a very big picture and this is a very big country and very big plain.

"I think the two go together very nicely," said Mr Anderson, who comes from Broken Hill.

The project was partly inspired by the historic and mysterious Nazca lines in Peru, which are attributed by some people to the work of extraterrestrials.

"They said the Nazca Plains could never have been done by man. Well this is fact that it is possible," said Mr Anderson.

He also completed a painting of the Broken Hill region this year in what is thought to be the world's largest canvas by a single artist.

"I like to get people to have an experience, to enjoy something, to have an emotion," he said.