During my three month stay in Fortaleza I was struck by the vibrant colors that surrounded me constantly and few things popped out to me more than the cities wonderful street art. Certainly there is quite a bit of regular garden variety tagging going on around the city but it's also full of art that is wonderfully creative and at times conveying political messaging worthy of any satirist.
All of these images are taken along the Beira Mar beach section of the city as it is unwise to wander very far from the safer areas, especially carrying anything of value (even the very old digital camera I used to take these photos). It's difficult to make out but it appears the author of this piece is Bads Van, with a 2015 date.
In this photo we see a piece of political commentary for the city. One of the primary news networks, Globo, is considered by many to be an unreliable source of information dedicated to propaganda. The Globo network logo is an eye, and therefore we see the eye literally placing thoughts into the mind of the child watching the television. You can clearly see the authorship in this one as Eddy-Zé-Erick.
This one I have no earthly idea what it is (and neither does my Fortaleza native girlfriend!) but it caught my eye for pure oddity even if it wasn't the most colorful of my selection. You can just make out the word Brazil in the middle of the stylized logo on the left, and in the lower right it seems the author of this one is Yongo.
We see the contrast here between the more advanced street art and what is more garden variety tagging that you see everywhere in the city. Not everyone is out here creating masterpieces. Unfortunately I don't have a wider version of this that shows the artists name but I do find it hilarious that they evidently had a hotmail e-mail address in 2015 (the year I took my trip).
Brazilians are stereotyped as an aggressively sexualized culture, but here we see the soul of a romantic on display. Inside the heart the text says "I dream with my eyes open so I don't lose sight of you." A line that could come straight out of a poem, but does not as far as I can tell though perhaps in another language. Note the above Afro Futurismo tag, which is not an author but actually a reference to the Afrofuturism philosophical movement centered around technology and African diasporas (Brazil is home to the largest African diaspora in the world).
Like many cities around the world there is an an uneasy relationship between the street artists and the law, some neighborhoods in Fortaleza aren't accommodating to any kind of graffiti regardless of quality, while other places such as the Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura located in Praia de Iracema offer artists a chance to show their work with the blessing of the government. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from that space, but it is noteworthy that to some degree the work of these artists is legitimized by local government.