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).

patadyong

patadyong

Decolonial Minimalism Founding Work (Culture - Habi)

Size: 1400 x 1400 pixels

Medium: Digital Art

Artist: IJWBAA

Year: 2025

Description:

Patadyong by IJWBAA translates the woven rhythm of Visayan textile heritage into a chromatic field of horizontal memory. The layered bands—red, yellow, pink, green, and white—echo the warp and weft of the traditional patadyong, a wraparound garment worn with grace and resilience. Centered by a brown field, the composition evokes both the body and the land, grounding the vibrant stripes in earthy continuity. This is not just cloth—it is cadence, care, and cultural infrastructure.

Historically, the patadyong carries stories of labor, lineage, and everyday sanctity. IJWBAA’s abstraction resists ethnographic literalism and instead channels the emotional logic of the weave. Each stripe becomes a mnemonic thread, each color a gesture of lived experience. The symmetrical layering above and below the central field suggests both protection and repetition—how garments wrap not just bodies, but histories. The reddish-brown edges frame the piece like ancestral borders, holding the archive in place.

This artwork reframes the patadyong as a visual prayer for continuity and collective legacy. By translating textile into digital rhythm, IJWBAA honors the garment’s role in movement-building and cultural memory. The piece becomes a sanctuary of stripes—where color holds care, and pattern becomes protest. Patadyong is not just a design; it is a declaration of rootedness, resilience, and the sacredness of everyday wear.

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