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).

batok

Batok

Decolonial Minimalism Founding Work - Culture (Symbols)

Size: 1400 x 1400 pixels

Medium: Digital Art

Artist: IJWBAA

Year: 2025

Description:

Batok by IJWBAA renders ancestral skinwork as chromatic rhythm and mnemonic geometry. Against a brown field, the image unfolds in horizontal bands—each one pulsing with triangles, chevrons, zigzags, and hexagons. At the top, symbolic figures hold hands, echoing communal rites and intergenerational transmission. This is not just pattern—it is batok, the ancient Filipino practice of hand-tapped tattooing, where every mark is earned, every line a story.

In Kalinga and other Cordilleran traditions, batok is a sacred rite of passage, inscribed with bamboo tools and soot. IJWBAA’s abstraction reframes this skinwork into visual infrastructure: symmetrical, repetitive, and deeply intentional. The motifs evoke protection, fertility, courage, and kinship. The figures above suggest the tattooist and the bearer, the ritual and the witness. The brown palette grounds the piece in earth and body, while the black lines become echoes of ink and rhythm.

This artwork honors batok not as artifact but as living archive. IJWBAA invites viewers to see tattooing as mnemonic care—where the skin becomes canvas, the mark becomes movement, and the repetition becomes ritual. Batok is not just design—it is declaration, dignity, and devotion. It is a chromatic chant for legacy, where every shape holds breath, and every band carries memory.

Featured On

Website:

coming soon

Social Media:

coming soon

Media:

coming soon

Publication:

IJWBAA. Decolonial Minimalism. Photobook, mm/dd/yyyy, p. #. - coming soon

Exhibitions:

coming soon