Musician and singer Bradley Barnett is known as a Dickson dignitary.
He busked outside of Woolworths for a couple of decades, seeing all manner of life walk on by.
"The things that used to happen there - playing to a four-year-old who'd just gotten a cochlear implant the day before and I'm her first live music. Playing to judges, playing to mathematicians, politicians," he said.
Artist Peter Engel had shopped at Dickson for years and always given Bradley a nod or a smile. When he got to know him better through the Blue Door Drop-In Centre, Peter knew he had to paint Bradley.
"Bradley's been an incredible contributor to the Dickson community for many, many years," Peter said.
"It doesn't matter where you take him, people know him. From the car to the cafe takes about half an hour because people stop and want to talk to him, it's just amazing."
Bradley, 59, agreed to sit for the portrait, admitting it was a strange process.
"It's a very odd thing," he said. "I'm so pleased, but it is very strange. I think it's brilliant. It's certainly me."
The portrait has colours flaring from Bradley's mane of hair and beard.
But Peter was most trying to capture Bradley's "personality through his eyes".
"He has very kind eyes. A lot of compassion and that came through in the way that he dealt with people," Peter said.
"Observing him, performing, he was able to develop a really strong rapport with people. He'd be singing a ballad and as soon as a mum and two kids came past, he went to Twinkle Little Star or something like that and he just entertained two children for 10 minutes. They were giggling and laughing and dancing."
Peter, who has painted other Canberra identities such as lawyer Bernard Collaery, journalist Virginia Haussegar and former chief magistrate Ron Cahill, said painting Bradley had been a wonderful experience.
"There's not a topic you can raise that he can't speak about and it's just been thoroughly enjoyable," Peter said.
Bradley was born in Canberra and spent many of his formative years in Paris and Melbourne. He attended North Curtin Primary and a year at Alfred Deakin High before his dad, who was in the navy, was posted to Paris, taking the family with him.
In the 1980s, he wrote and performed songs with Matra Fact Black Dogs. Throughout his life he has worked as a public servant, kitchen-hand, removalist, suburban rail guard, writer and actor.
All the while he wrote songs and performed in pubs, at markets and on the streets up and down the east coast.
After years of trying to settle elsewhere, Bradley found that all roads led him home to Canberra. From 2001, he became a fixture outside Dickson Woolies.
"I just love Canberra," he said.
"I'm a suburban boy and I just think this is the best version of that that I've come across. I mean, other places are beautiful, but this is my place."
Bradley, who describes his own style as "redneck music with a blues soul", has recently stopped playing music.
"COVID changed a lot of things, in the middle of that life gets in the way as well. I guess I lost some of the wherewithal, the mojo," he said.
But things like the unveiling of the portrait and the friendly reaction he gets walking around Dickson has given him a boost of confidence.
"I feel like I might be building up to starting again," he said.
