THERE was this group show on the allegory, titled Allegoria, curated by diskurso art magazine, where one of de Veyra’s pieces was this triptych that was purportedly a tribute to feminism. Composed of three separate canvases, the panels were uniformly shaped like gingerbread men or jigsaw puzzle pieces. The panels could be seen as gingerbread men, or women, to read the statement that each carries a palatable idea that’s at the same time fragile, brittle as a cookie. Or the separate shapes can be seen as jigsaw puzzle pieces, albeit uniform in shape, to say that the paintings all mean to look for a place in society where they can fit.

    One of the panels, which the artist titled The Fetishist (or, Allegory of Our Collective Sadness/Badness), is a Picasso-esque piece supposedly portraying a fetishist. But instead of depicting a specific sort of fetishist, the figure looks more like a composite of several representations of sexual fetish, including clothing fetish (cosplay fetish as well), hair fetish, possibly also latex or PVC fetish (if the bra would be seen as of latex/PVC), uniform fetish, lipstick or makeup fetish, and mechanophilia, among other sexual fetishes and sexual kinks . . . “collaged” to complete the figure composition. A pair of eyeglasses on the floor on the painting’s bottom left is also here to represent eyeglasses fetish.

    ​Now, the parenthetical title of the panel—as well as the text on the painting’s central heart shape (which reads “Sad/Bad But Not Kapoor”)—wants to refer to this compound of various sexual fetishes in the figure as standing for both a “sadness” and a “badness” in “our collective.”

    How do all this add up? Let us see.

    Sadness, which is often expressed as a black or grey mood, is a result of what one cannot be or have. If one cannot be this or cannot have that, they will be sad. That should be quite obvious to everyone, and we can all agree on that.

    Badness, on the other hand, also often expressed as a black mood, is something more complex and latent. At best it can refer to humanity’s resourcefulness in finding ways to momentarily become what one cannot be; often, though, it refers to efforts to own things that one cannot have, let’s say, by harmfully stealing another’s ham for a Christmas dinner so that one can pretend to be someone able to afford ham for Christmas. That latter is the more obvious badness.

    However, there is the sexual kink, which is often a subconscious means to enhance partner intimacy through fantasy, just as a fetish is a subconscious means to replace that intimacy. Both are definitely a kind of badness, but akin to human resourcefulness’ “badness” at achieving enhancements and replacements within existence. . . . Unlike stealing, however, these latter badnesses are often harmless. . . .

    Now, as for the black heart, notice that the text inside this central image in the painting uses the conjunction “but” for the phrase “but not Kapoor.” It is there to intimate that the blackness in this sadness-and-badness situation is at a merely sociological or socio-psychological level and not at an Anish Kapoorian spiritual (Buddhist or Hindu) level. Please check Kapoor’s Symbolist or Neosymbolist spiritual claims for the black holes in some of his sculptures.

    But there’s a common point between those two levels, the level of Kapoor’s spiritual black holes and de Veyra’s psychological black heart. They both treat of the color or non-color black as a positive color or non-color instead of negative. Spiritual, qua obsession with the beyond, in Kapoor’s sculptures’ case, and resourcefulness in de Veyra’s painting’s case. . . .

    However, as a second meaning, this very heart’s mention of Kapoor would also inevitably allude to the controversy around the Kapoor-patented Vantablack pigment, which controversy would be signified in the A Gingerbread Man’s/Woman’s World feminist series or triptych, where The Fetishist is a part of, as a product of a male possessiveness in Kapoor. That individualist possessiveness can be contrasted with a female motherly instinct to nurture everyone instead of one individual self, where this nurturing desire is perhaps achievable through, say, the populist spirit of the commons. That communal maternal instinct is here represented in this painting’s heart image through its use of a commonly-owned black pigment, not a patented-for-exclusive-use one.

    The whole metaphorical narrative’s alluding to commonality and community in this painting, therefore, again as per de Veyra’s direct allusion to them in his title, should lead people to assert the possibility of fetishism and the sexual kink as being both common and even communal and not merely special or rare among a few individuals. In that sense, the painting becomes a celebration of communal fetish or kink, or rather of communal or collective resourcefulness, . . . leading to Christmas dinners of what the community can be or have.

    Which should explain why a large part of the costume worn by the painting’s female figure refers to the costume of Voltron. Because Voltron was not one robot machine but a composite or collective of several robot machines.