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).

binatok

Binatok

Decolonial Minimalism Founding Work - Culture (Symbols)

Size: 1400 x 1400 pixels

Medium: Digital Art

Artist: IJWBAA

Year: 2025

Description:

Binatok by IJWBAA renders the intimacy of tattoo transmission as a duet of mnemonic embodiment. Against a gray field, two stylized figures stand like mirrored vessels—each adorned with intricate bands of zigzags, chevrons, triangles, and hexagons. These are not just patterns—they are echoes of batok, the ancestral Filipino tattooing tradition. But here, IJWBAA reframes the act itself: binatok as the state of being marked, remembered, and ritually transformed.

The figures—one slightly larger, one foregrounded—suggest the tattooist and the bearer, the elder and the initiate, the rhythm and the skin. Their circular heads and vertical stems evoke bamboo tools and human posture, while the shared white line across their midsection becomes a horizon of transmission. The geometric motifs pulse like chants, each one a breath of legacy. This is not ornament—it is archive.

This artwork honors binatok as a relational ritual. IJWBAA transforms the tattoo into visual infrastructure, where every mark is a mnemonic thread and every figure a vessel of care. Binatok becomes a chromatic prayer for continuity—where the body is not just canvas, but community. It is not just a design—it is a declaration of how we carry each other’s stories, one line at a time.

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

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