Artist Bio
Daniel Arendzen is a Malaysian-based Dutch phygital (physical work with a digital counterpart) artist focussing on traditional architecture. He is a printmaker and a 3D environment artist who intentionally reconstructs architectural structures before creating physical monotype prints.
His practice explores disappearing traditional homes displaced in the impossible, creating tension between heritage and contemporary presentation.
The current body of work focusses on the Rumah Kampung, traditional Malaysian houses, with the Rumah Kutai of Perak as its primary subject. The houses are disappearing from streets, however, they can be appreciated in serene or in more thought provoking environments.
Daniel is currently developing monotype prints and giclee prints from this digital environment work towards completing this first body of work.
Artist Statement
My work is pushing back on modern life, which is erasing local communities that took centuries to build and to understand. Therefore, I embrace vernacular architecture as it is local, communal, and precise: traditional knowledge encoded in local materials, solving specific problems for specific places. I am drawn to that knowledge because it represents local natural insight, skills, and craft of communities who built in harmony with their environment rather than against it.
I reconstruct traditional houses digitally before transforming them into physical hand-pulled monotype prints. The digital reconstruction is to conserve, its giclée print is exact, and the monotype is unique, singular and textured. Together they hold a record of something the world is losing.
When I drive by, I still see the beauty of traditional houses, but often in decay, if they still are standing. In my work, the houses stand strong, displaced in worlds that raise questions rather than giving solutions. They are between the impossible and the beautiful, but they are alive telling their story.