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).

Iranun

Iranun

Decolonial Minimalism Founding Work - Indigenous People

Size: 1400 x 1400 pixels

Medium: Digital Art

Artist: IJWBAA

Year: 2025

Description:

Iranun renders two figures in elemental geometry—circular heads, yellow torsos, and striped brown garments—yet each shape pulses with ancestral specificity. The larger figure’s triangular hat and striped shorts evoke maritime attire and woven codes of Iranun seafaring legacy, while the smaller figure’s circular skirt and cap suggest ceremonial dress and kinship continuity. Their suspenders and layered garments are not decorative—they are mnemonic scaffolds, visual syllables of labor and lineage.

The bright blue field behind them is not neutral—it’s a chromatic invocation of sky and sea, a horizon of movement and memory. A white horizontal line bisects the composition, anchoring the figures in shared cosmology and visual rhythm. Their beige limbs and unmarked faces resist caricature, asserting presence without spectacle. Their stillness is deliberate—a stance of witnessing, a refusal to perform indigeneity for external gaze.

Iranun is not abstraction—it is encoded ancestry. IJWBAA’s visual grammar resists ornamental excess and reclaims essence, asking: what if geometry could carry ritual? What if chromatic restraint could amplify indigenous voice? This work offers a visual infrastructure for radical care, where every stripe, silence, and shape becomes a vessel for collective legacy.

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