Baybayin: a renewal through art

Filipino-American Baybayin artist Kristian Kabuay talks about Baybayin as a didactic art form that bridges past and present

- Celene Sakurako

The explicit blood-like ink splats, stylized bold brush strokes, and vivid drips of paint stains that flow from the tip of Manila-born, San Francisco-bred artist Kristian Kabuay’s calligraphy brush may look like crafted nonsensical strokes to the naked eye, but to the trained eye, they spell Tagalog words in one of the Philippines’ pre-colonial ancient scripts, known as Baybayin. Influenced by graffiti as well as traditional Asian calligraphy, Kristian’s work is a fusion of old and new. Every stroke, every mark, every character, is an ode to his birthplace—a way to reconnect with his roots and fulfill a constant yearning to understand his cultural identity as a Filipino-American immigrant from the early 1970s.

To Kristian, being a self-taught Baybayin artist is more than just creating art that incorporates Baybayin. “At surface level, it simply means that I write Baybayin artistically. On a deeper level, I help connect Filipinos to their culture and ancestors.”

“My art is didactic in nature,” he continues. “My works both entertain and instruct, while exploring themes of identity, poverty, death, love, and duality. By blending the ancient script with contemporary aesthetics, my work bridges time and space as well as challenges the necessity of economic value to prove our cultural heritage worthy of preserving.”