Becoming DecolonialThe Living Journal of IJWBAAPHASE IV: DECOLONIAL MINIMALISM
To Reduce Is to Reclaim“I wasn’t simplifying. I was stripping away the lies. Minimalism, in my hands, became a form of protest — and possibility.” - pao
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Aeta Family A tribute to resilience and continuity, where ancestral ties endure through time, whispering stories of identity, survival, and quiet strength.
I Finally Gave It a NameFeb 2024
It took two years, but I finally named what I was making:Decolonial MinimalismThe words came quietly, after a storm of practice. They came not from theory, but from survival.My works were never just minimal. They carried weight — of memory, violence, resistance. But they didn’t shout. They whispered.I realized I wasn’t reducing to beautify. I was removing to reveal. Erasing what was imposed. Leaving what was true.This wasn’t Rothko. This was mine.I named it because I needed language. Not for the art world. For myself. To mark a line in the sand and say: This is where I begin again.
It took two years, but I finally named what I was making:Decolonial MinimalismThe words came quietly, after a storm of practice. They came not from theory, but from survival.My works were never just minimal. They carried weight — of memory, violence, resistance. But they didn’t shout. They whispered.I realized I wasn’t reducing to beautify. I was removing to reveal. Erasing what was imposed. Leaving what was true.This wasn’t Rothko. This was mine.I named it because I needed language. Not for the art world. For myself. To mark a line in the sand and say: This is where I begin again.
Figures is a visual testament to fragmented memory and resistance, where abstract forms reconstruct lost histories and defy imposed erasure.
Kizumeizukaka: The Archive That Couldn’t Be ColonizedApril 2022
When The Flux Review invited me to present a solo exhibition, I didn’t want to showcase — I wanted to exorcise.The show was called Kizumeizukaka (I-J-W-B-A-A). The word doesn’t exist. I made it up. Like a memory we lost the words for.It was a virtual archive of fractured culture, rewritten myths, and symbols that refused to behave.The digital gallery looked like a shrine, a fracture, and a wound all at once.But it was also a promise: that even if we’ve been colonized, digitized, and silenced — our stories still glitch their way through.Kizumeizukaka wasn’t a show. It was a survival file.
When The Flux Review invited me to present a solo exhibition, I didn’t want to showcase — I wanted to exorcise.The show was called Kizumeizukaka (I-J-W-B-A-A). The word doesn’t exist. I made it up. Like a memory we lost the words for.It was a virtual archive of fractured culture, rewritten myths, and symbols that refused to behave.The digital gallery looked like a shrine, a fracture, and a wound all at once.But it was also a promise: that even if we’ve been colonized, digitized, and silenced — our stories still glitch their way through.Kizumeizukaka wasn’t a show. It was a survival file.
“Wong Family” by IJWBAA is a minimalist digital portrait that uses bold geometric forms and a vibrant color palette to celebrate familial unity, identity, and emotional connection through abstraction.
Why I Couldn’t Paint Like the OthersDecember 5, 2022
By December, I still felt like an outsider. No art school. No local collective. No landscapes, portraits, or “pretty” subjects.While my peers created work that looked comfortably “artistic,” mine resembled glitches, maps of emotion, and things trying desperately to heal themselves.I used to see that as a shortcoming. Now I recognize it as freedom. In my world, there were no gatekeepers to tell me what belonged on the canvas. So I did whatever I needed to do.My approach—minimal yet loud, untrained yet sincere—was never a lack of culture. It was a reclamation of one. I was unlearning every rule I’d ever absorbed and forging a new path forward.
By December, I still felt like an outsider. No art school. No local collective. No landscapes, portraits, or “pretty” subjects.While my peers created work that looked comfortably “artistic,” mine resembled glitches, maps of emotion, and things trying desperately to heal themselves.I used to see that as a shortcoming. Now I recognize it as freedom. In my world, there were no gatekeepers to tell me what belonged on the canvas. So I did whatever I needed to do.My approach—minimal yet loud, untrained yet sincere—was never a lack of culture. It was a reclamation of one. I was unlearning every rule I’d ever absorbed and forging a new path forward.
The Screen is a fractured lens through which history, memory, and identity glitch into visibility, resisting erasure and shaping a future beyond imposed narratives.
The Future Is in FragmentsMay 2024
I no longer fear fragmentation. I work inside it.I don’t want to reconstruct a perfect past. I want to live in the rupture.Decolonial Minimalism is not clean. It’s not tidy. It’s not a neat ending.It’s an invitation: to look at the broken and see a map.I still don’t have full answers. But I’ve built a practice that lets me ask the right questions.Who decides what is valuable?Who taught us what beauty looks like?Who told us silence was safe?My art is not an escape. It is an entrance — into a Filipino future we haven’t fully imagined yet.
I no longer fear fragmentation. I work inside it.I don’t want to reconstruct a perfect past. I want to live in the rupture.Decolonial Minimalism is not clean. It’s not tidy. It’s not a neat ending.It’s an invitation: to look at the broken and see a map.I still don’t have full answers. But I’ve built a practice that lets me ask the right questions.Who decides what is valuable?Who taught us what beauty looks like?Who told us silence was safe?My art is not an escape. It is an entrance — into a Filipino future we haven’t fully imagined yet.
go back to Phase I: Inception
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