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Daniel Agdag is an artist and filmmaker based in Melbourne, Australia, whose practise sits at the nexus of sculpture and motionography. He creates highly detailed sculptural pieces that have been described as architectural in form, whimsical and antiquated in nature and inconceivably intricate. Daniel predominately works in cardboard. Drawn to its utilitarian origins and monochromatic presentation, he creates a paradox of fragility and strength with structures that resemble architectural forms and machines.
Cardboard is Daniel’s primary medium. Drawn to its utilitarian origins and monochromatic presentation, he creates a paradox of fragility and strength with structures that resemble architectural forms and machines by utilising a medium that is essentially paper, preserving them under glass vitrines or bell jars. His work is both delicate and eccentric and his process is very much
akin to freehand drawing – he spends a lot of time thinking and absorbing objects in the built environment, their peculiar details and functions, which, once resolved in his mind, begin to slowly emerge, fitting together to compliment the overall idea.
Daniel describes his work as ‘expressions of symbolic self-analysis reconstructed in three-dimensional form’ – mechanical manifestations of his thoughts, ideas and ancestral stories. He takes inspiration from the overlooked, concealed mechanisms and systems that enable the industrialised world to function, and often explores the playful, fantastical realms of invention and imagination.
Whilst his work is predominantly realised in cardboard he has made work in steel, wood and glass in recent years as part of translating his elaborate ideas into large scale public art sculptures. His recent stop motion film The Lost Property Office was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2018 and won Jury Prize for Best Animated Short at Newport Beach Film Festival in 2019.
Daniel Agdag
2 – 26 September
Daniel Agdag is an artist and filmmaker based in Melbourne, Australia whose practice sits at the nexus of sculpture and motionography. He creates highly detailed sculptural pieces that have been described as ‘architectural in form, whimsical and antiquated in nature and inconceivably intricate’ and we are delighted to welcome him back for his second solo show with the gallery this autumn.
Daniel sits within a group of artists represented by the gallery who take quality and the handmade to the extreme. His works, made primarily from cardboard, take many hours to complete and are strikingly beautiful in their intricacy. Drawn to the utilitarian origins and monochromatic presentation of his material, Daniel creates a paradox of fragility and strength with structures that resemble architectural forms and machines by utilising a medium that is essentially paper, preserving them under glass vitrines or bell jars. His work is both delicate and eccentric and he spends a lot of time thinking about and absorbing objects in the built environment, their peculiar details and functions, which, once resolved in his mind, begin to slowly emerge, and coalesce.
Daniel Agdag discusses his working practice with writer and ABC broadcaster Fiona Gruber. Working in pared down materials and at an incredible level of detail we explore how his work sifts film and the imagination in pursuit of inspiration, ahead of his show at Messums London and Wiltshire this Autumn.
Daniel Agdag, an artist and filmmaker from Melbourne, creates models that come to life through the medium of stop motion animation. As static objects, however, these pieces invite close personal inspection and maintain suggestions of whimsy and narrative. Agdag’s pieces make no attempt to conceal the mechanisms and materials of his process. For Agdag, cardboard […]