batz, also known as batzdu, is a digital artist whose work embeds internet memes—especially the Pepe character—within the visual grammar of twentieth century modernism.Working under a practice he calls Modern Memeism, he reconfigures the fractured planes of Cubism, the dynamism of Futurism and the grid-based abstraction of Piet Mondrian to stage what he terms the memeplex.,
His earliest documented work, GeoMetric Pepe #52 from the series GeoMetric Pepes, was minted in September 2022and embeds the Pepe meme within a rigid Neoplasticist grid that references Piet Mondrian.In Curiosity, minted in March 2023,he drew on Cubism's fractured perspective to render a deconstructed human form of interlocking hands, limbs and a mask-like face.Pepedenza #2, minted in January 2023 as an edition of ten,disassembles national colors and iconography into curved, shifting fragments that recall the dynamism of Italian Futurism.Meme #96, from 2024, distorts Piet Mondrian's grid into a chaotic field of glitching, pixelated blocks that invoke the visual language of compression artifacts.
In May 2024, describing Meme #336, he wrote that his work aims to “mutate, propagate and proliferate memes through an artistic memeplex”.On October 21, 2024, he released several works together, including self_12 and self_14 from the series Study of The Self, The Nine, presented as a triple triptych, and two works from an Untitled Frog series that extend his recurring use of frog imagery.,,,,
