THIS was a favorite of the painter among his early little pieces.

    Jade cutlery, he says. So, is that a gold plate? And is that a platinum metal goblet on the right? Here, objects of wealth and music (or art) presented as luxury, or . . . let’s rephrase . . . products owned by wealth, or the status of being wealthy . . . sit with a compound image of poverty/modesty (the simple fish and rice on the wealthy man’s plate).

    Here too is a representation of possible violence in the knife or switchblade or sword at the bottom of the picture. Or is this a flute (the self-portraying music/art object) of the seated artist? Or is it both? Also, notice the overly central ordering of the picture, an arrangement or composition that could be a classicist artiste-ism in itself. The composition’s message or question seems to be these: what is the artist? For whom does the artist exist or fulfill his role? Does the artist truly know what he’s doing, as regards the politics around his role and his works within his and his works’ social surround? Does he think himself a part of this surround or not? Or is he alone, a self-exiled outcast who occasionally visits the marketplace to sell his wares, surviving only thusly, apathetically?

    The thesis of this work would be repeated in a 2006-18 painting titled Mask of an Artivist Soul as a Middle-Class Aficionado of Social Realism, which de Veyra exhibited in a group show at the Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea Gallery in Greenbelt 5 in March, 2018.