IN this, the fifth painting for his Pop Symbolist Positively Ugly series, titled At a Pizza to the Polls meeting I said, “True, no one resisted the environmentalist new government's diktat to paint over every building with titanium white paint,...”, de Veyra expands his series’ essaying assemblies of conscious and unwitting manifestations of democratic life within gentrified city scenes.

    1.) In this particular four-panel cityscape piece from 2026, de Veyra depicts a seeming harmony occurring between a city government with a supposed “diktat” (a diktat that however makes environmental sense) and what appears to be that city’s existing participatory democracy (represented in the picture by a wall painted with text campaigning for a yes vote for a people’s initiative or measure). This harmony is illustrated by, on the one hand, a blimp sporting words enjoining businesses to renew their licenses on time and, on the other, the aforementioned present participatory democracy, upon which combination we can assume a citizenry’s happiness or satisfaction with their government’s tax collection and spending. Within this harmony, we can also assume the reason why the “diktat” mentioned in the painting’s title is facing no resistance: the citizenry agrees with it!

    2.) While it is true that the color white has a history with elitism and Fascist architecture, the latter of which ironically emulates the ancient and modern architecture of Greece (ironic because Greece is the birthplace of Western democracy), that color (or non-color) has recently been embraced by environmentalist sustainable architecture as the logical outdoor and indoor pigment for hot climates. Environmentalism itself has been more left-wing populist in its leaning and has often been in conflict with big industry-favoring economic conservatism. The color white has also figured in the suffrage movement, and more recently in such pro-democracy actions as the White Wednesdays campaign in Iran and the Ladies in White movement in Cuba.

    3.) Despite the pro-democracy graffiti on the upper wall of the white mini-mall in the painting’s main panel, malls themselves are a symbol of corporate influence on consumerism and of their replacement of less consumerist public squares. Malls are also often private. As architectural aesthetic spaces, they may also function as an escape from urban realities that may need more public engagement.

    4.) The giant pizza art sticker/decal on the window of the pizza restaurant in the painting’s main panel, meanwhile, is here to reference pizza’s associations with democratic activity, such as those by the Pizza to the Polls organization in the United States. Despite being one of Donald Trump’s favorites and one of Jeff Bezos’ favorite symbols for a small leadership committee, pizza remains a democratic symbol for its inherent characteristic as food accessible to all classes, one of the most customizable food, food designed for sharing, and one the shape of which can reference democracy’s votes coming from all sides. The food also recalls the alt-right-deriving Pizzagate conspiracy theory that terrorized an innocent pizzeria in Washington, D.C. in 2016.

    5.) The pizza chain brand featured in the painting is Yellow Cab. The brand, while Filipino, alludes to the yellow taxicabs of New York City, which introduced the worker-owned cooperative practicing democratic, transparent and decentralized governance despite being under a city government permit system to control traffic chaos. On the riding public’s side, the yellow taxicab has recently become a symbol of a past monopoly that has found a competitor in app-based ride-hailing services, thus a new symbol of consumer choice or options.

    6.) The image of the food truck outside the pizza restaurant on the main panel’s foreground implies a fictional offer of more affordable quick menus from the same food store brand, recalling the concept of food trucks as a symbol of accessibility to the public, economic opportunity in catering to lower incomes, and urban inclusion for chefs who cannot afford to build a restaurant. Food trucks have thus represented food as a democratic cultural equalizer, whether they’re found outside or within the complex of corporation-owned malls.

    7.) In urban sociology, cafes’ outdoor umbrellas are regarded as having created a "third space", where sidewalk cafes and public seating areas would serve as informal arenas for civic life, open discourse, and democratic interaction. However, in de Veyra’s painting a cafe's outdoor umbrellas are on a balcony on the second floor, not on a sidewalk or mall walkway. While private balconies are read as liminal zones that private citizens can step into to interact with a collective or public sphere and perhaps also project their voice, institutional balconies have historically been associated with power or authority looking down upon the lower masses below.

    8.) In the context of the painting and the series, the image of clothes on mannequins in a display window should inspire thoughts about fashion’s role in democracies, being both a symbol of accessibility through the concept of the ready-made and of class hierarchies with the presence of haute couture.

    9.) The image of the fire hydrant also reappears in this painting, which de Veyra has used in the previous paintings of the series as a symbol of government accountability towards the building of infrastructure as well as a measure of how government implements the equitable distribution of the public’s water resource.

    10.) Other symbols in the painting include a dove, that classic symbol for peace and civil dialogue, and a quadcopter drone that functioned as a symbol of state or corporate espionage in de Veyra’s earlier painting titled Constant grounding… but here representing the democratization of the bird’s-eye view.

    11.) To continue the series’ salute to de Veyra’s favorite soap brands, the painter here includes the relatively-unknown American hand-made soap brand Demo (in the top left panel of the painting). Read into the brand’s name an allusion to the political “demonstration”. “Demo Soap” could also be aurally read as “demos’ soap”, demos (people) being one half of the Latin roots of the word democracy, the other half being kratos (rule). Additionally, hand-made products are regarded as consumer items struggling to engage the heavily-marketed mass-produced ones from big business.

    12.) While gondola lift projects may, from one angle, be a demonstration of effective government public spending for public transport and tourism, their construction have historically been colored by conflicts with the public due to lack or absence of public consultation, conflicts particularly relating to concerns of environmental reviews, local social justice, and safety. In this sense, the gondola lift in the painting is here to inspire discussion about participatory budgeting and participatory democracy.

    13.) As regards the blimp, which reappears in this painting in the series, the image again remotely alludes to the illiberal cartoon character named Colonel Blimp and the “blimp mentality”. But, as in the previous paintings of the series with that image, it should also recall the non-rigid airship’s use by the democratic Allies in World War II against Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan as coastal patrol, anti-bomber convoy escort, and anti-submarine warfare craft. In recent years, the blimp has been associated with advertising, that field that on the one hand has aided education in providing public awareness while on the other has been helping public and private institutions or wealthy individuals in certain manipulations of public perception for consumerist goals or toward deceptions.

    14.) Also in the main panel, de Veyra has painted a waterfall in the background, to symbolize a feature of the commons, inspiring thoughts about the people’s access to clean water, government’s transparent management of the river system, the fair and equitable allocation of such natural resources, and the people’s civic participation in government decisions regarding these public sources.

    15.) The two small panels of the four-panel piece are arch-shaped. Often associated with religious or Catholic icons, the arch shape may also recall the windows of Mussolini’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, a building de Veyra also referenced in his 2018 painting “I Look Better Than Him in White”. De Veyra uses it here on two scenes, the one with the “demos’ soap” billboard and the scene with the potted mimosa tree and what appears to be a Chinese restaurant. Semiotically, de Veyra’s use of the arch shape may also be read as highlighting his worship of the democratic idea as a sacrosanct Christian one (e.g., Christian democracy, liberation theology) antithetical to the ideas of Christofascism.

    16.) In the lower small panel, de Veyra placed the mimosa tree in a pot to reference Ruskin Bond’s use of the plant as a vibrant symbol of post-colonial democracy in India in the latter’s short story “The Kite Maker”. The plant’s yellow flower has also been recognized as the flower of International Women’s Day.

    17.) The Chinese restaurant, meanwhile, carries the name Siu Bao, which is short for cha siu bao, that Cantonese baozi that was regularly used by the Hong Kong pro-democracy activists in their art, illustrations and stories to celebrate their heritage as they demanded autonomy and accountability. In the Philippines, many members of the Philippine contemporary financial and political elite linked to the country's plutocratic system are Chinese-Filipino, with the Philippine cha siu bao (called siopao) having been used to symbolize Philippine politics that displays the “white” shell of a supposedly legitimate democracy while hiding the meaty agenda of the elite. Despite this symbolism, many Chinese-Filipinos have also figured in many of the country’s pro-democracy and progressive movements.

    18.) The upper right panel features buildings beside a cliff, recalling the ancient palaces of monarchs built on such areas on higher ground for defensive purposes or to overlook crop lands or both. In contemporary contexts, such constructions (as long as they are buildings and not ordinary houses of low- to middle-income families) would have reasons such as the exploitation of private access to panoramic views, security and privacy (seclusion), the display of one’s privilege and wealth on a hill, or the adventurous exploration of engineering’s limits. All of those reasons would spell entitlement or social advantage, even extreme wealth in the case of that last reason. From another angle, the buildings could be read as a metaphor for the adventure of democracy and its need for granite ground in order for it to last centuries and not easily collapse “off a cliff” toward backsliding after a few decades of triumph and enjoyment.

    19.) The teardrop-shaped windows on the towering building may be gothic or Islamic, which in either case would point to a democratic multiculturalism or otherwise to a people’s tolerance towards poststructuralist approaches to hitherto fixed architectural contexts.

    20.) According to the painter, the cypress tree in front of the buildings in the painting’s upper right panel alludes to the memoir The Cypress Tree by Kamin Mohammadi. In Persian culture and art, the cypress tree is a symbol for deep-rooted toughness and stubborn defiance against brutal weather conditions, thus a metaphor for the Iranian nation bending with the gusts of despotism and conflict but remaining rooted and strong. The cypress image could also reference the Cypress Revolution in Montenegro in 2019. Other evergreen trees also have connections to democratic actions or symbolism.

    21.) Beside the cypress tree in the painting’s upper right panel is a smart lamp post, symbolizing the democratic tension associated with the device. While the lampposts’ camera, sensors and wi-fi are useful to citizens in such uses as the tracking of traffic and weather factors, there are also concerns about their use by illiberal officials in government for, say, surveillance or facial recognition tagging.

    22.) The upper right panel is also mostly composed of a sky image. The artist means this to be a reminder of democracy’s not being a thing that just fell from the sky, of its having always been a product of a past revolution that thus must be guarded from losing that revolutionary zeal of its beginnings. The artist means to say that the sky will not interfere and will allow democratic backsliding to occur if the people who have been blessed by it will allow that occurrence to progress.

    23.) The artist, Jojo Soria de Veyra, signs his name here as JSdV26 on all the four panels (look for them). Then he painted the text “Justicia Social del Valle 26” on the mini-mall image on the main panel (lower left panel) as the name of the “Barangay Mall,” implying that Justicia Social del Valle is the name of the barangay-cum-valley and perhaps the number 26 as its sitio number. The acronym of that mall name would also be JSdV26. Although the number 26 in the signature clearly refers to the year the painting was completed, 2026, in Philippine politics the number may symbolically refer to Section 26 of the 1987 Constitution’s Article II and the history of failure around the realization of that Section’s intent or hope.

​

PREMIERING at a tribute show for Alwin Reamillo which opened on 9 September 2026 at Altro Mondo Creative Space in Makati, the painting displays the same Reamilloan obsessions with memory and history as well as theme-treatments common to both artists, including the depiction of conflicting meanings of certain symbols, the communality of memory, and continuity between art "frames".