FEATURING nothing but de Veyra’s 1990s signature in impastoed, measured brushstrokes over thin, pink oil paint layers on canvas, this was the painter’s tongue-in-cheek take on painting as having become more of a fare for collectors than for art lovers. However, doesn’t this measured contrivance become a pro-painting act in itself, being a painting that painting lovers can still love?
    It’s a measured salute, then, clarifying the thin line between art- or artist-loving and art-collecting/-investing; or between painting (even with only a signature for a subject) for one’s individual art thesis (beloved by fans) and for one’s “brand” (beloved by those irksome present investors).
    But, again, with measured brushstrokes eluding the real quick signature, and in a carefully set-up impastoed mode, doesn’t this painting finally achieve nothing more than a self-parody or self-mockery of the artist’s arrogance in creating that other, more mental, kind of self-portrait, the signature, necessary though that piece of text is?