This wall at the Embassy of Portugal isn’t just “painted street art.” It’s carved—literally cut into the surface by VHILS (Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto), who’s famous for making portraits by chiseling, drilling, and peeling back layers like an urban archaeologist. 

The piece is part of his “Scratching the Surface” series, made here in February 2017 (it reportedly took about five days). 

And it fits this neighborhood perfectly—the Creative District energy, the river nearby, the sense that the city’s real stories live in textures, not headlines. 

For me, it reads like a reminder: every face has a backstory—every wall does too.

8jan2026