DE VEYRA’S Pop Symbolist Positively Ugly series brings semiosis into the realist painting process. In the series, the artist paints fictional city scenes that evoke gentrification (whether completed, in-progress, or oncoming), but then, in emulation of Pop Art, scatters a collection of conscious or otherwise unwitting symbols of democracy, anti-democracy, or both in each of these city scenes, thus introducing a new way of seeing a postmodern cityscape or any other similar urban neighborhood in real life.
    The artist’s 2018 painting, lengthily titled The New Middle Class and the Remaking of Our SoHo, Our Spray-Painted Little Section of the City, started this series about gentrified neighborhoods that nevertheless contain “positively ugly” manifestations of middle-class democracy (fighting clean plutocratic anti-democracy) at work. The series is currently made up of four paintings (see the series’ next three paintings here), thus is now a tetralogy, but soon to be a pentalogy on September 19, 2026.
    Combining elements from graffiti art, Pop art, genre painting, cityscape painting, Gustave Courbet realism, fantasy art (in terms of an overall unrealism), and surrealist automatist abstraction as well as Arte Povera (in terms of its color choices, color scheme/composition and taste), The New Middle Class... depicts, as its title suggests, a fictional formerly-graffiti-rich neighborhood undergoing gentrification, where all the original graffiti seem to be in the process of being replaced by advertising graffiti.
    A negative/positive comment on gentrification, and then a presentation of potential symbols and significations concerning democracy/anti-democracy, or democratic/anti-democratic action or processes within a gentrified neighborhood, the painting offers two ways of approaching the scene depicted—first, as a classic negative critique of the gentrification that has occurred here or is yet occurring, and then as a novel examination of the many positives that could also be found inside the scene. This latter direction portrays manifestations of what the painter calls the neighborhood’s “positively ugly democracy,” where the scene begins to point to a utopian or ideal vision of gentrification, a different kind of urban renewal more middle class-driven than not, possessing a more democratic mood.

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The negative view of the scene:
    1.) As mentioned, and as per the painting title, the scene in the work is a fictional formerly-graffiti-rich neighborhood undergoing gentrification, where all the original graffiti (by a lower- to middle-income citizenry) appear to be in the process of being replaced by the advertising graffiti (of a wealthy class).
    2.) Aside from the incursion of advertising graffiti represented here, other negatively expressive imageries shown as realities that the neighborhood has to grapple with in de Veyra’s genre painting-cum-cityscape include the following: an absent view of the sky, echoing the concept of city economics and environment as a kind of prison (wage slavery, limited access to natural light, etc.); an oversized fire hydrant, here poking fun at people’s over-materialism and the wealthy class’ big share of a public resource for the protection of their properties; and a soap brand’s package, negatively symbolizing, according to the artist, “big business’ over-hype of artificial cleaning efforts that the people at the top have designed and manufactured, denying the natural functions of a geography’s democratic ‘biome’.”
    3.) The work’s title refers to a bunch of people’s erstwhile “spray-painted little section” within their city, their “SoHo,” the remaking or gentrification of which is being spurred by a “new middle class.” The painting is thus a portrait of a case of urban renewal that blames that new class. The painting’s title is actually a play on the title of a book by David Ley, a Canadian geographer known for his contributions to the field of social, cultural, and urban geography, titled The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. The artist does not aim to represent the book here, but only kowtows to Ley’s approaching the problem of gentrification from the demand angle instead of merely from the supply angle, as is the wont of many critics of gentrification. To Ley, the aesthetic demand for gentrified communities is as much the motor, if not ultimately the primary motivator, of gentrification as the supply to that demand. Or he (Ley) is saying that gentrification is happening because there’s a market for it, a market that is not only allowing it but in fact has desired for all of it to happen. According to the artist, the “new middle class” in the painting’s title alludes both to the Philippine reality of OFW new money contributing to the demand for gentrified neighborhoods and to investments coming from globalization partners establishing bases in Philippine urban areas, e.g., the new middle- to upper-class Korean, Japanese and Chinese migrants to Philippine society now playing a big part in the (demand for) gentrification of many neighborhoods in the country.
    4.) As mentioned above, the painting’s title references a neighborhood that used to be graffiti-rich, our SoHo, that is now slowly being rehashed to contain another sort of graffiti, advertising graffiti; this neighborhood is being rehashed to become their SoHo.
    5.) In the painting there are two Sport brands. To de Veyra, they signify  everyone’s desire to be forever young and healthy and upwardly mobile, which to him is synonymous with everyone’s desire to update their homes (the entire gentrification spirit present in everyone). That could be negative in the sense that manufactured consumerism is often negative.

 

A positive view of what’s in the scene:
    1.) But looking further, the painting turns into de Veyra’s utopian presentation of an ideal, which the painter achieves by avoiding the usual corporate-led or mogul-led clean and color-harmonic design of real gentrifications, touting instead a possibly middle class-driven gentrification in progress, accompanied by symbols of individualism, diversity, multiculturalism, and openness. While the painting’s title sounds critical of the usual sense of gentrifications, the painting’s resulting imagery itself—viewed from this positive angle—touts a “new middle class” that, true, may not be against the idea of upscaling, but is displaying an ideal form of gentrification the motor of which is coming not from a corporation but from their sole middle-class wealth that may even involve the culture of the bottom. What is displayed, then, is a kind of “positively ugly democracy” within a neighborhood the aesthetics and liveliness of which would shape a contrast to that in a corporate-led gentrification product.
    2.) If, as per the artist’s title derived from the book by David Ley, gentrification is happening because there’s a market for it, a market that is not only allowing it but in fact has desired for all of it to happen, then it follows that a solution to the gentrification problem can also be hatched from the bottom of this demand instead of from the supplying or governing top. What de Veyra is trying to extract from the negative view of gentrification is this middle class-deriving positive view wherein resides the very solution to the gentrification problem.
    3.) True, the painting’s title references a neighborhood that used to be graffiti-rich, “our SoHo,” that is now slowly being overtaken by another sort of graffiti, advertising graffiti; the neighborhood is slowly becoming their SoHo (see the additional notes below to know a bit about the real-life SoHo story). Now, what is in de Veyra’s painting is fictional, as we noted, and the totality of what we see in the composition cannot be something that may be deemed typical of a gentrification occurring in a particular urban area in the country today; usually, for instance, a gentrifying capitalist would simply paint over all existing graffiti in a neighborhood’s walls and replace all of those with the commonplace modernist and minimalist architectural aesthetics for apartment fronts that we’ve seen so much of in our metropolises. None of those gentrified neighborhoods, or neighborhoods in the process of being gentrified, would look like the one in de Veyra’s painting (unless, of course, they were contrived to appear like it, pretending to contain structures owned by little house owners instead of by a conglomerate, as might appear in a mall row mimicking houses in a Venice or Turkish street).
    4.) But, of course, the painting’s title is still talking about graffitists in their old neighborhood; the neighborhood in the painting has, supposedly, already undergone some change. In other words, what we see in the painting is no longer that old section of the city; it has already been transformed, has already been gentrified to a certain extent, or is already in that process of development or transformation. But since, as mentioned, this is not a realist portrayal of a Philippine urban neighborhood’s gentrification, then indeed this can be read as a cityscape that has been contrived by the artist to dramatize another sort of possible gentrifying transition. Let’s go back to the question of realism, then, and ask whether this kind of neighborhood is indeed possible, or, to be clearer, if the painting can truly be said to not mean to photograph a certain reality but to propose another reality. Again, the question should be whether that proposed reality is at all possible. And the artist answers through his painting that it is, if it hadn’t already happened somewhere. Because if indeed gentrification is also coming from the demands of the middle and the bottom middle (as per Ley) and not merely from the propositions of investors and tastemakers at the top, then a neighborhood’s gentrification can also be instigated by these same middle and bottom middle, either through the procedures of inclusionary zoning or simply through the investments of smaller money (new middle class money) instead of the usual big business corporate funds that buy a land and develop structures on it. In short, to de Veyra, it is possible for a gentrification process to proceed without the involvement of a large corporation but simply through a neighborhood of individual building owners who might collectively decide, separately or together, to invest or reinvest in their own neighborhood, or in their own buildings, for whatever reason. After all, didn’t the same thing happen in Nakpil Street in Malate, Manila in the late 1990s, resulting in a neighborhood of new restaurants and bars, with the street suddenly becoming one of the new nightlife destinations of Metro Manila? To the artist, that is perhaps one ideal sort of gentrification, wherein you would have a dilapidated old-money neighborhood getting its rehash from a new generation of its inhabitants (or former inhabitants) toward an updated look. In that sort of situation, no one is displaced; the old owners of the buildings remain the owners, either by way of new middle class funding from within or through pooled funding or through help from a local government. In this sort of situation, no new owners come into the picture, although there might be new buy-in (but not buyout) investors.
    5.) And that’s precisely why de Veyra did the wall images in his painting the way he did them—it’s not entirely clear whether one of those images is still free graffiti or advertising graffiti; the only thing that’s clearly advertising graffiti there is that of an Irish Spring Sport box, which is a product that doesn’t even exist anymore, and even that one is painted far from how the official ad campaign for the product went (Colgate-Palmolive’s marketing people might actually protest at how their defunct soap is being advertised here, as might the producers of that Polo Sport bag). But is it possible that these products were supposedly not painted via the dictates of big business advertising departments but by the democratic initiative of their small retailers, extending de Veyra’s argument for democracy? Additionally, while de Veyra’s negative view of gentrification uses the soap as a symbol of “big business’ over-hype of artificial cleaning efforts that the people at the top have designed and manufactured, denying the natural functions of a geography’s democratic ‘biome’,” his positive view of a middle class-deriving gentrification occurrence quickly transforms the Irish Spring brand and image to allude to, for instance, the multi-colored characteristic of Ireland’s spring. It must also be noted that the phrase “Irish Spring” was recently used to refer to Ireland’s slow shift away from Vatican influence in relation to the issue of same-sex marriage and abortion. Ireland has also been a symbol of functioning citizens’ assemblies for constitutional change. Meanwhile, Polo Sport here becomes another ambivalent symbol, polo being a sport of the elite while the Ralph Lauren brand itself became a common feature of 1990s hip-hop fashion.
    6.) While the presence of the two Sport brands may be deemed negative in that they signify everyone’s desire to be forever young and healthy and upwardly mobile, which to the artist is synonymous with everyone’s desire to update their homes (the entire gentrification spirit present in everyone), negative in the sense that manufactured consumerism is often negative, the idea of “sport” itself has always functioned as a symbol of free competition, which idea already subverts the utopia of monopolies or timocracies.
    7.) As for the figures and faces that he painted that seem to combine features from different races, . . . a white man’s face looking like a young Dexter Holland and an Asian face looking like Takashi Murakami, . . . the artist has stated that he wanted to depict a neighborhood that could be in any cosmopolitan area of the world, as much as represent the free spirit behind punk rock and Pop art, in acknowledgment of punk culture and Pop art’s respective existence as an expression of resistance and ironies. There is also an ad box on one of the walls that advertises a show in Galleri Egelund in Denmark, pushing forward again the cosmopolitan context of the painting as much as it may also be referencing Denmark as a symbol of democratic transparency and a participatory system. Beside the ad box is a Five Below store window. Five Below doesn’t have a franchisee or brand licensee in the Philippines yet, but the artist has stated that he appropriated the brand to function as a good representation of lower-middle class consumption.
    (The artist has also stated that the cosmopolitan sensibility of his scene was inspired by the futurist cosmopolitan sensibility in Blade Runner.)
    8.) While a negative view of the painting’s urban scene would regard the oversized fire hydrant as poking fun at wealthy people’s over-materialism and the wealthy class’ share of a public resource for the protection of their properties, from the above positive angle of middle class-led gentrification the big hydrant would simply be read as a large expression of community and sharing, or of the commons, and can even be read as a middle finger to the plutocratic roots of the gentrification many of us know. The neighborhood depicted being a middle class one instead of corporate-owned, the hydrant would be a mere part of the larger urban infrastructure, indicating an equitable distribution of the water resource, government efficiency, as well government’s classless commitment to public safety and accountability.
    9.) Now, seeing the painting as about a middle class-deriving gentrification process under any of those preceding situations, no one person or corporate family could be said to be deciding for everybody here. In this neighborhood, no one is curating for everybody what color their respective buildings should have. Would that small-scale kind of gentrification result in something ugly or loud or tacky? De Veyra couldn’t care less. To him, that ugliness, if it is to be tagged by someone as ugly, is prettier than a homogeneous grey condominium building-front proposition coming from the aesthetics of large corporations or single taste-imposing moguls.
    10.) The artist is aware of the primary market of gallery-based paintings today. His painting, therefore, can also be read as a statement about his positive attitude toward the potential of hipster culture and his hopefulness toward more approachable wealthy social liberals, that market or audience his gallery-based art is consciously targeting or addressing. In other words, viewed from this market-aware angle, the painting’s position as a statement against the aesthetic fascism of big business gentrifications and similar concepts of plutocratic progress, and as a statement favoring a middle-class-based gentrification process, should be easy for a social liberal art collector to relate to, according to the artist.
    11.) We could now paraphrase that, in this painting, de Veyra tried to purposely fail at depicting a negative view of gentrification by trying to illustrate the appearance of an ideal form of gentrification, implying in the latter effort the presence of a collective gentrifier—wealthy but art-loving, with a populist sort of aesthetic taste. Such a collective gentrifier would definitely want to retain some of the elements of the old neighborhood, even if they would somehow end up retaining only a fraction of those. Again, in brief, the painting’s message, as against those of paintings or photographs that merely lament pictures of gentrification, is one that proposes a positive middle class-deriving angle.

 

Additional notes:
    In his title, de Veyra refers to the old neighborhood in his painting as “our SoHo,” in reference to SoHo, Manhattan. Why SoHo? The case of SoHo in Manhattan, New York City, in the United States, is quite a known case, one that American sociology professor Sharon Zukin described quite well in a study. As per Zukin, SoHo, Manhattan used to be an artists’ haven because of the neighborhood’s then-low rental rates. It became an artists’ scene, where one could go to artists’ cafes, little galleries, little bookstores, coffeehouses, and so on. This attracted many from the wealthy class who wanted to be a part of the scene, and these members of the moneyed class started getting units for themselves in the neighborhood, in turn starting the gradual hiking of rental costs in the area. All finally reached the point where the aforementioned artists and musicians and authors and chefs living in the area could hardly afford to stay there much longer. These artists started to move out, and what art remained were those of the more upscale fashion and culinary industry, etc., as well as the new owners of the newly-gentrified neighborhood. The artists, at least the not-so-well-off-yet ones, had to go somewhere else.