Locally born artist, Smug, or Smug One, aka Sam Bates, a world renowned contemporary street artist, has transformed a huge wall on the Quest building into a stunning portrayal of local artist George Sobierajski.

It is the fifth in a series of stunning murals which have been funded by the Shoalhaven City Council and the Nowra CBD Revitalisation Committee in collaboration with the Verb Strategy.

Perched high up on a cherry picker, using nothing but spray cans, he has brought the stunning portrait to life.

“I have known George and his family for a long time,” he explained.

“I went to school with his children and spent a lot of my childhood learning how to do graffiti with his son.”

Smug spent the first 21 years of his life in Nowra before moving to the UK to pursue his art.

Now living in Glasgow, Scotland, he travels the world producing stunning work.

“It’s a fulltime job,” he said.

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“I get to paint every day and do walls like this all around the world.

“This has just been another stop, however it has been great to do one in my hometown.

“I’ve watched as a few other murals popped up in Nowra over the past few years, so it was great to finally be able to do one.

“It was also a good excuse to visit the family.”

Smug’s work over the past week has certainly gained plenty of attention with a number of daily updates being placed on social media as his mural came to life.

“This was my favourite wall of what was left,” he said.

“It was smooth, which is much sought after over a brick wall.

“I’m keen to jump over any wall.

“This has been pretty cool and you can see it from blocks away.”

He said the only downside was being a north facing wall meant he had to work all day in the sun.

“Once it’s finished it will be great - it will get the sun all day,” he laughed.

“This is a standard sized wall for me.

“Pretty much everything I do is an average of three to seven storeys. This is about four storeys so it's in the middle.”

Working from a photograph he drew his outline freehand.

“I don't use a projector or grid,” he said.

“When I was younger the initial markings were sometimes the hardest. They could take me as long to get on the wall as the colouring in or painting.

“I do this seven days a week and have done it for years and years so I suppose it is a lot easier for me to blow things up to such a large scale.”

He said his subject had been a regular visitor during the week.

“George has been here every day,” he said “he doesn’t say much and doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.

“I hope he likes it.”

There is talk the mural series will continue throughout the CBD, with the possibility of a mural walk even being established.

As for Smug, he now heads off to Melbourne, before onto Tumby Bay in South Australia and then returning back to Europe where he has work booked up for the next three to four months.

But he is open to make a return and produce another local artwork.

“Sure, I’d love to come back and paint another wall in Nowra,” he said.

“Always happy to come home and as I said it’s a good excuse to see family.”

Smug’s mural is now the fifth to be produced in the CBD.

It follows Brisbane’s Guido Van Helten’s portrait of a Greenwell Point oyster farmer from a photo by the late Jeff Carter on the rear wall of the former Betta Electrical building which faces the Egans Lane car park; Melbourne-based Matt Adnate’s piece inspired by a photograph taken while travelling around the remote deserts of Australia’s Northern Territory, incorporates a yellow-tailed black cockatoo - a totem to the people of Nowra and the Yuin Nation and the face of a young Aboriginal girl also overlooking the Egans Lane car park on the rear of the Nowra Library building; New Zealand’s Owen Dippie’s work of a gazing Arthur Boyd over Stewart Place on the back of Sturgiss Newsagency; and Wollongong’s Claire Foxton’s work of  local air-force veteran Narelle Hart on the Holt Centre wall.