Big Ernie

Oversized human figures advertising a trade are an American roadside form that barely took hold in Australia. The Muffler Men of the United States – fibreglass giants holding tyres, axes or mufflers outside businesses – number in the hundreds; this country has only a scattering. Ernie is one of the clearest local examples of the type.

Giving him a name is what turns a sign into a character, and the same move recurs across this catalogue: Buffy at Sarina, Clancy at Kirwan, Rambo at Goulburn, Morty at Queanbeyan. Named objects get adopted; described ones get photographed.

The Goulburn Valley around Shepparton is one of Australia's most intensively farmed irrigation districts – orchards, dairy, tomatoes, canning – and a machinery dealership on its main highway is a substantial business rather than a shopfront.

Australian Big Things also have a history of attracting hostility. Reporting on Victoria's objects records a group calling itself the Revolutionary Council for the Removal of Bad Art in Public Places threatening to burn the Fairfield Industrial Dog Object in Melbourne's north-east after naming it among the country's worst public artworks. Roadside sculpture is not universally loved.

Access is restricted because Ernie stands on a working dealership site.

His height, his maker and his age are not recorded here.