6074. Upfest 2024 (11)

Liam Bononi is right up there with some of the best street artists in the country and beyond, and it is a great privilege that he has returned to Bristol and Upfest with this outstanding portrait piece in Lime Road. I got a little lucky with these pictures, because there is usually a car parked in the bay, partially obscuring this wall.

The portrait piece is different from work I have seen before by the artist, in that usually he distorts the image in some way through ‘cracks’ or obscured features and so on, but here he appears to have gone with a straightforward portrait. His photorealistic work is outstanding and manages to convey more than simply an accurate portrayal by capturing both emotion and movement in the subject.

There is one nod to obscurity in this piece in the form of the golden violin bow, which is lacking in any detail. I am not too sure what to read into this deliberate mechanism, and may have to do a little research. One of the highlights of Upfest this year.