ANOTHER early de Veyra interest was the conceptual narrative, or the storytelling pose armed with a certain intended vagueness. So, in this work, we are led to a narrative, image-content-wise, by the piece’s title, but definitely there’s that context-ridden visual juxtaposition involving a barbershop pole image taken from an Edward Hopper painting, a church window, a floor tile, and, in the middle, a supposed huntress/goddess (Artemis) whose arrow bag has been erased, making her look as if she’s taking a chewing gum out of or into her mouth. The fictional context is, therefore, the main challenge here for being elusive, puzzling.

    For example, only men and boys go to barbershops, supposedly, although a barber’s training curriculum might also include the servicing of short-haired girls. So, is she (the Artemis in the picture) waiting outside for a boy in the barbershop? Or is she a mere statue outside, a central scene-stealer seen from inside the barbershop by the men and boys there? Or: could she actually be in front of a “barbershop” for girls, if there is such a thing in these recent decades of short-haired women and young women? Or could this barbershop be a unisex sort of barbershop (which might perhaps be automatic in many spots although not so in certain others)?

    If this is a feminist piece aiming at a kind of barbershop paradox, would the “bitch” in the title have to be read as a feminist-appropriated tag? And, finally, is the narrative here referring to an occurrence during a Sunday? Because if it is indeed a Christian Sunday, then why posit an Artemis? Is the Virgin Mary a kind of Artemis? How?
    Additionally, here is a challenge to the framer, particularly the matting-maker who’s supposed to be flexible as to be able to follow the curves on the picture’s right side. Does this come on to you as a conceptual (not necessarily Conceptualist) puzzle offering symbols of gender, power, tenderness, relaxation, the mundane, liberal flexibility, illiberal fixity, and a possible sexual innuendo? We certainly hope it does.