100 Things To Do You’ve Never Heard Of #090 See the world’s largest acrylic painting at Broken Hill

Jaws drop and people stand speechless in front of the World’s largest acrylic painting, the Big Picture. Do not stop in Broken Hill without checking it out. It’s difficult here to do it justice, especially when you realise it was only one man, one brush stroke at a time, who completed the colossal 12m x 100m canvas.

Ando (left), the artist, has never had an art lesson in his life. His style is typically referred to as “Andoism”, as he blends perception, reflection, depth, shadow and light to depict a “super realistic” art form so true to life you’ll be tempted to step into his landscapes. The Big Picture is best described as bringing the outback to life, with real red dirt and plants forming the foreground – an effect that seduces the eye.

The painting features lightning strikes, dust storms, 100,000 saltbushes, 3000 clouds, 20,000 trees, 20,000 stones and more. Ando painted parts lying on his back, used around 3000 tonnes of paint and took five years to conceptualise, plan and eventually unveil the Big Picture in 2001. The painting is a work in progress masterpiece, which Ando will continue to add to throughout his life.

“ANY EXCUSE TO GET TO BROKEN HILL IS A GOOD ONE. AND THIS IS A GOOD ONE.” – Sandra Sully

WHERE // At the Silver City Mint and Art Gallery in Broken Hill. More info at www.andoart.com

DID YOU KNOW? // Ando created the world’s largest work of art: a head and shoulders image of a stockman that he etched into the Mundi Mundi plains near Silverton, NSW, covering 4,300,000m².