THIS square painting, titled Mask of an Artivist Soul as a Middle-Class Aficionado of Social Realism, is de Veyra’s tribute to the social liberals among the well-off, particularly those with a cultural bent, that he profiled as his ideal audience or collector.

    It is a square painting that looks like a mask, and could in fact be seen as a certain personality’s portrait-mask; at the same time it’s also an indoor-room still life showing objects representative of the arts (picture-making, music, and literature).

    Its title would lead us from simply seeing the objects in the painting to realizing the art-cultural contexts of these objects and, finally, the political contexts of these same. The title should also lead us to read into the painting certain subjects: for instance, the subject of politics in art, and the knowledge behind social realist or artivist positions (represented here by the image of the books in the cabinet in the lower middle of the painting, one of which books has what could be a Chinese or Vietnamese yellow star on its spine). We should also see that the composition is alluding to issues like poverty, with the rural and slum pictures hanging on the brick wall . . . and with the books on the shelf appearing like an incomplete set of teeth, which incompleteness is pitiable for being broken or decayed and at the same time fearsome for being red-bloodied. Finally, the title also references the idea of social positions of privilege (having a brick wall, or bricks embedded on a concrete wall). So, as a symbol of a middle-class status, the whole composition presents a middle-class sympathy, or pseudo-sympathy, for the less privileged.

    But notice also that this allegory of the aficionado of social realism (who has an artivist soul) has this very person, this aficionado, drinking from the more expensive beer can (foreground on the canvas’ left) instead of from a cheaper beer bottle. This may be a tiny symbol, but a symbol nonetheless that is stronger for being small, for being a taken-for-granted detail from daily life. If one is to appreciate this picture from a radical-left working-class position, then, the use of the beer-can may be seen as a device for mocking the middle class’ mere social liberalism or perhaps hipster pseudo-artivism. Now, of course de Veyra would prefer a reading of the picture as a nod or salute to the social consciousness and sympathies/empathies of well-off citizens, these citizens being his primary audience in the galleries, but that artist-deriving reading cannot be forced on his audience. Still, the painting qua salute to the social consciousness of middle-class elements is the valuation that should automatically result if we are to view the picture from the left-of-center true-social-liberal or even middle-class democratic-socialist angle. . . . After all, where was the painting exhibited or displayed in the first place? That is to say, who would have been targeted as the painting’s market in that location or venue, if not the upper-middle-class patrons of galleries? You could say that it’s social liberalism that originated from both the poor and wealthy classes, but yet socialism has not strictly been a working-class movement. Should it be?

    Now, is this painting also a self-portrait, alluding to the artist’s own social liberalism or democratic socialism deriving from his lower middle-class position in society? Consider that the painting looks like a mask. Please note, as this could be what the painting could really be most about, that while the mask can be a device for hiding a truth, or for pretend play, it can also be just as useful for displaying or donning a representation of the character or voice of a dreamed-of Other—the Other that one is sympathetic towards and would want to be one with or be. As much as the mask can hide one’s true motivations, the wearing of a mask can also be to display what one identifies with, or where one wants to belong. So, should we see this seemingly social liberal or democratic socialist painting in someone’s private living room, couldn’t it be that the owner of the painting either wants to project a certain false image or wants a symbol, up there on their wall, signifying who they really are?