About the
artist

JOJO SORIA DE VEYRA finally returned to the field of painting and entered the art industry as a late-bloomer in 2018 at the encouragement of painter-friend Marcel Antonio, de Veyra’s University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts buddy (de Veyra dropped out of the college in 1985). His return-to-painting debut was in the March 2018 Allegoria group show, curated by de Veyra himself under diskurso.com, held at the Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea gallery that was then inside Greenbelt 5.

    Previous to this return, Antonio and de Veyra, along with friend painter Simkin de Pio, started in late 2014 the art magazine diskurso.com (or diskurso art magazine) with seed money donated by Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea gallery founder Remigio David, with no strings attached. De Veyra served as editor and chief permanent critic of the magazine-cum-blog. Later, diskurso art magazine established diskurso Curation, with de Veyra and bricolage and installation artist Alwin Reamillo as the chief curators.

    Also previous to his re-entry into the painting art world, de Veyra self-published online, starting in 1998, several volumes of poetry, a volume of short fiction, and a bilingual novel. He would also later write social, cultural, political and art criticism blogs, and has also blogged as an advocate for the introduction or strengthening of direct or participatory democracy instruments in Philippine politics and government.

    In 2004 de Veyra also got involved with a rock music band in Leyte called Groupies’ Panciteria, of which he was the ensemble’s lyricist, second voice, and percussionist. The band failed to get funding for their debut CD’s launch, and their album demo would only later be made available for free listening on Soundclick.com and, later in 2010, on YouTube.

    De Veyra’s slew of writing activity was spurred by his dropping out of art college (the UPCFA) in 1985 and decided move into the creative writing field. He would spend a year and a summer under Silliman National Writers Workshop programs (1987-1989) and a summer at the University of the Philippines Creative Writing Center’s National Writers Workshop (1988). Thereafter, several of de Veyra’s creative literary works and critiques appeared in a number of magazines, journals, and anthologies.

    De Veyra spent seven years in the advertising industry, starting in 1994 and ending with his retirement from the industry in 2002. He later freelanced for the publishing and trade publishing world.

    In his permanent return to painting in 2018, de Veyra tried to build his own brand of contemporary allegorical painting that he would start by taking a conceptual approach to the practice, engaging painting history as a springboard for new ideas. After curating Allegoria, he put up a group show on religious art and another on appropriation in art.

    His first solo show, titled The New Middle Class and the Remaking of Our SoHo, Our Spray-Painted Little Section of the City and other fictions, ensued on 7 March 2019 at the Altro Mondo Gallery at The Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences, fully launching de Veyra’s name and late career in the painting field by presenting his allegorical narratives in thirteen canvases. His paintings in the show also extensively allude to events and personalities in art history.