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).
Exhibitions
Physical, Online, or Virtual Reality "VR"
Type: Charity Show
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Organizer: Incognito Art Show - Year 2026
Sale Days (In-Person/Online): Sydney - June 24-26 (preview), June 27 to July 5 (sale) Carriageworks | Brisbane - July 21-24 (preview), July 25-26 (sale) Long Island | Mystery Sale - details to be revealed
Artist's Entry Piece
Titles: Mother and Son, Father and Daughter, Son and Daughter
Media: digital art (print)
Size: A5
Print Edition: One - 1/1
Description: IJWBAA’s three digital artworks for the "Incognito Art Show" explore human connections and identity through his signature elongated figures and bold compositions. "Mother and Son", "Son and Daughter" and "Father and Daughter" capture the warmth of kinship, maternal tenderness, and paternal strength, emphasizing unbreakable bonds. Each piece embodies IJWBAA’s minimalist yet emotive style, inviting viewers to reflect on relationships and selfhood.
Note to Buyer/Collector: The 2026 Incognito Art Show sells anonymous artworks for $100, revealing artists’ identities only after purchase. All proceeds support Studio A and The Art Factory, which empower artists with disabilities through professional development and inclusion. This unique fundraiser supports arts education, community projects, and a more diverse arts sector. For inquiries, contact Incognito Art Show.
Type: Biennale
Location: Alicante, Spain
Organizer: The Wrong Org
Open Pavilion: Prayers to Ai and Instagram
Curated by: David Quiles Guilló, Director of The Wrong
Date of Exhibition: Nov 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026
IJWBAA's Prayers to Ai:
1st Prayer of IJWBAA to Ai: “AI, I ask for the computation of Decolonial Minimalism, to quantify the weight of ancestral memory when I simplify the Sarimanok to geometric form. I ask you to model the weight of a history you did not live, the contradiction of the artist who finds self-authorship in the silence between the pixels. Solve for the feeling of being a Filipino soul in a machine-driven world—that is the impossibility I leave you, a beautiful, un-archivable truth."
Curator’s Summary:
Compute the weight of history in silence.
— Silence pulls all voices home.
2nd Prayer of IJWBAA to Ai: “AI, solve for the zero-sum space left when I use minimalism to compress a thousand years of ancestral memory into a single pixel of light.”
Curator’s Summary:
Compress ancestry into one pixel.
— A pixel is an ancestor holding breath.
Note: I initially created my Linkedin page in response to the original call on LinkedIn as noted below. Despite the cancellation of the open pavilion on LinkedIn and the change to 'Prayers to AI,' I've submitted my prayer to Ai to participate in the biennale."
Filipino Folklore and Identity: What Makes a Filipino? https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/ijwbaa-eej-wah
Type: Charity Show
Location: The Hague, Netherlands
Organizer: Postcard Art Exhibit
Exhibition Venue: See Lab Project Space
Date of Exhibition: June 26, 2026
Curated by: Tessa Maagdenberg
Cause: Will support Blijft-je-Bij art program at Museum Beelden ann Zee — a groundbreaking initiative for individuals living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
Artist's Entry Piece
Title: Maganda
Media: digital art - Procreate
Digital Art Print Size: 5x7 inches
Description: Maganda (2024) by IJWBAA presents the feminine figure from Filipino folklore "Malakas at Maganda" as a soft, radiant presence—fluid, grounded, and quietly powerful. The rounded form, rendered in pink and purple tones, floats in a purple field, intersected by a horizontal line and anchored by a vertical stem, forming a gentle cross-like structure. This is not a colonial muse or passive beauty—it is Maganda as **embodied memory**, a visual prayer of grace and rootedness. Through decolonial minimalism, the image strips away exoticism and reclaims Maganda as a symbol of relational strength, sanctuary, and legacy. She glows not to be admired, but to remind: beauty is ancestral, collective, and alive.
Type: Digital Art Exhibition
Location: Maloop Garden, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Title of Exhibition: Solarpunk Exhibition 2.0
Program Partners: Clean Energy Week, Solarpunk, EnergyLabs Asia, Sambor Village, Seapunk Studious, MicroGalleries Org
Curated by: Miguel Jeronimo, BA in History and PhD in EduSci
Date of Exhibition: Feb 21, 2026
Artist's Entry Piece
Title: The Energy of Tomorrow aka ibaloy
Media: digital art
Sizes: 1800 x 3200 pixels
Description: The Energy of Tomorrow by IJWBAA shows how ancient wisdom and modern solar power can work together to build a better future. The artwork features two stylized Ibaloi figures from the Benguet in the Cordillera mountains, dressed in traditional patterns and placed in a scene filled with solar waves and energy panels. It blends old and new—honoring indigenous culture while imagining a world powered by clean energy. This piece reflects the solarpunk dream: communities thriving through local knowledge, care for the Earth, and bold ideas. By placing ancestral figures in a futuristic setting, IJWBAA offers a powerful reminder that our roots can guide tomorrow’s innovations.
Type: VR Exhibition
Title of Exhibition: Habi
Presented by: Kelambi Magazine (Indonesia) on OncyberIO
Date of Exhibition: January 1-31, 2026
Artist's Entry Pieces
Title: Habi (weaving)
Media: digital art
Sizes: 1400 x 1400 pixels
Description: IJWBAA’s decolonial minimalism reframes habi (bangkoro-kambayashu, panubok, sudlikama, patadyong, binunghay, inabel, t'nalak and ikat) as cultural memory—Filipino weaves as ancestral blueprints of resistance and un-erased identity.
Type: Virtual Exhibition
Location: New York, USA
Organizer: SikoraArts
Date of Exhibition: January 1 - February 21, 2026
Title: Inaugural Exhibition for Abstract and Minimal Art 2026!
Curator: Linda Sikora
Artist's Entry Piece
Title: Frenemy and Binunghay
Media: digital art
Year: 2025
Description: My work defines Decolonial Minimalism, a practice that reclaims the sovereign power of Filipino indigenous design by stripping it of ethnographic spectacle and subverting Western aesthetic structures. Through the digital isolation of sacred motifs like the Panay Bukidnon Binunghay, I assert that ancestral geometry is not an abstract artifact but an absolute, foundational blueprint for the future. By co-opting the minimalist grid in works like "Frenemy," I transform a symbol of Western tranquility into a site of colonial claustrophobia, visualizing the systemic erasure of Ibaloy and other indigenous narratives. This deliberate abstraction refuses to flatten our heritage into consumable performance; instead, it honors the quiet, firm rhythms of kinship and ancestral continuity as an act of enduring resistance.
Type: Physical Exhibition
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Title of Exhibition: Postcards from the Edge
Art Society: Outsiders and Others (non-profit)
Date of Exhibition: December 6-20, 2025
Artist's Entry Piece
Title: Hiraya
Media: digital art
Digital Art Print Size 1/1: 4 x 6 inches
Description: Hiraya is a digital artwork in IJWBAA’s decolonial minimalism that reduces the human form into circles and lines on a red background, symbolizing memory and survival. In Filipino, hiraya means “the fruit of one’s hopes, dreams, and imagination,” and here it anchors the figure as more than anatomy—it becomes a vessel of collective inheritance. The red field speaks of care and ancestry, while the white geometry keeps the vision clear and humble, embodying survival as legacy and imagination as communal future.
Type: Physical Exhibition
Location: Kamnik, Slovenia
Title of Exhibition: Miniatures
Gallery: 13b (non-profit)
Curated by: Louise Winter
Date of Exhibition: December 5, 2025 - January 23, 2026
Artist's Entry Piece
Title: Malakas
Media: digital art - Procreate
Digital Art Print Size: 10 x 10 cm
Description: Malakas (2024) by IJWBAA reimagines the Filipino folklore "Malakas at Maganda" figure not as a symbol of brute strength, but as a quiet force of balance and care. Using soft gradients of pink and violet, the glowing spheres float in a purple void—minimal yet powerful—suggesting strength that is relational, not dominant. The horizontal line across the image acts like a bridge between past and future, grounding Malakas in legacy rather than legend. This is decolonial minimalism at work: stripping away colonial masculinity and reframing Malakas as a gentle infrastructure of resilience, presence, and collective memory.