Joseph Catimbang is a Filipino-American graphic artist based in California. He has lent his skills to companies and organizations like Skillshare, Adidas and Greenpeace and one look at his work makes it easy to see why he has been trusted by such large brands and gathered over eighty thousand followers on social media. Working by hand with ink on paper, Catimbang has proven himself as a technically skilled, versatile artist who is always trying new things and succeeding.
With his Instagram account, Joseph Catimbang invites the world in to watch his sketchbook grow with a wide range of uncolored, exquisitely inked pieces. His recent reposting of a two-year old piece on Valentine’s Day is the perfect reminder of what makes Catimbang so great as an artist. On the one hand, there is his skill with hand inking which is top-notch and exemplified in this unconventional Valentine’s art. Through the interplay between black inks and negative space, we see a man who is both covered by and seemingly consumed by branches, vines, leaves that twist around his arms and torso. Birds stand on them as the man pulls the branches across his chest apart to reveal a black pit surrounding his pure heart, an arrow having been shot through its middle. He wears a face that expresses sorrowful and tragedy. It’s powerful, captivating and evokes a response. Next to that is the artist himself and the message accompanying the pieces, the one where he reminds people to think of everyone on Valentine’s Day, what you have and not what you don’t, and urges his followers to spread love that day and every day. He is an artist who stimulates the eye and the mind, often through the use of dark imagery, and yet he isn’t afraid to speak to his follower’s souls and champion positivity. It’s a great mix to find in an artist and exactly what you can expect to find from Joseph Catimbang, check him out!
