Street art, or I should say, "good" street art is difficult to come by here in Da Nang. As you would expect it is illegal without permission - as it should be - and even when you do encounter something that is decent more often than not it isn't spray, it is brush work. This is not to say that brush work doesn't require talent but I don't understand why a person would put that outdoors because it is kind of the antithesis of street art in my mind.
What do I know though? I am just an admirer and can't actually do any of this stuff myself. I do promote and give whatever I can for causes that support good street art and there have been several parks there where artists could come and paint but for reasons that were never explained to me they always get shut down by the police. I guess they don't like the image of street art but at the same time don't really have a problem with the fact that there is garbage all over the place that nobody ever does anything about.
Anyway, I stumbled upon this piece by a wonderful accident and that was because the route that I normally take for beach access a bit south from where I live was closed and redirected because of street works. Had it not been for that road closure I might not have seen this at all.
I wonder if the one "wonky" eye was done intentionally? Is this some woman that was considered really beautiful despite having a feature that most people would consider undesirable?
I don't know if this is someone famous or not. I don't recognize her, but I was just happy when I rounded a corner and saw this painted on the side of a cement storage shed of sorts. I moved in a bit closer to check to see if it was spray because until you get really close, it is tough to distinguish between the two.
You can tell by the white, which is normally the last color an artist will put on a piece that is on a painted cement wall, that there are tiny dots away from the main painted area. This, according to artists I have hung out with and watched as they do this, is a sure sign of real spray and probably with specialized caps that don't come on the cans when you buy them. A standard can that you would buy at a hardware store has a very wide distribution pattern to the point where it wouldn't be possible to get something this dark on the surface without it "bleeding" down. This wouldn't happen at all if the person was using brushes plus you would see the brush lines as well - which to me is less attractive than spray.
So yeah, this was a great score of a find and I would say one of the best spray pieces in all of Da Nang. There were no other pieces around. I will put the approximate location here.
That's a very approximate area but if you are truly interested in seeing this, you will be willing to hunt it out. I don't know how much longer this can really remain here because all of the surrounding areas have been bought up by large hotels and the rather derelict nature of this neighborhood, if you can even call it that, would suggest that this place will also be torn down in the next couple of years of even months.