IJWBAA [eej-wah] is a Filipino digital artist and the first Filipino recognized in Techspressionism. He is a neologist and the originator of Decolonial Minimalism —an art movement that reclaims minimalism through ancestral memory and cultural reawakening. His work earned a spot on the shortlist for the Hiiibrand Design and Illustration Awards 2024. His papers were published on Academia.edu.He was selected by David Quiles Guilló, Director of The Wrong, to participate in the 7th Edition of The Wrong Biennale - described by The New York Times as the digital world's answer to Venice Biennale - with Prayers to Ai, further cementing his standing in the international digital art community. His collected works, compiled in two volumes of I Just Wannabe an Artist, have been recognized, officially archived, cataloged, and made available in the collections of the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Museo Reina Sofía, the National Museum of the Philippines, Getty Research Institute, and other prominent cultural institutions worldwide. The two volumes are cataloged in WorldCat under OCLC Numbers 1530632939(Book 1) and 1530636063(Book 2).

Alamat ng Bulkang Mayon

Alamat ng Bulkang Mayon

Decolonial Minimalism Founding Work - Filipino Legends

Size: 1400 x 1400 pixels

Medium: Digital Art

Artist: IJWBAA

Year: 2025

Description:

Alamat ng Bulkang Mayon by IJWBAA renders the iconic volcano as a pure geometric memory: a green triangle rising against a blue expanse. This minimalist abstraction distills the legend into elemental form—no lava, no eruption, just the quiet symmetry of longing. The triangle’s perfect shape evokes the myth of Magayon, whose beauty and tragic love gave rise to the volcano. Here, the mountain is not a spectacle of destruction but a mnemonic shrine to devotion and grief.

In Bicolano folklore, Magayon falls in love with Pangaronon, but their union is thwarted by war and betrayal. Upon her death, a mountain rises from her grave—Bulkang Mayon, named after her. IJWBAA’s visual retelling strips away narrative excess and centers the mountain as a symbol of sacred transformation. The green triangle becomes Magayon herself: upright, enduring, and quietly radiant. The blue background suggests both sky and sorrow, framing the volcano as a witness to love’s aftermath.

This artwork invites viewers to see Mayon not as a tourist icon but as a living archive of myth and memory. Its simplicity is its power: a single shape holding centuries of emotion. By resisting literalism, IJWBAA restores the legend’s emotional core—how beauty can become landscape, and how grief can rise into form. Alamat ng Bulkang Mayon becomes a visual prayer, a chromatic elegy, and a mnemonic offering to the sacred feminine encoded in the land.

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