Painting is a “free” art, while industrial & graphic design are more “functional” arts. Painting has also technical aspects, but has no functional task as such, less external demands, giving the creator more freedom. This creative freedom of expression has been a crucial “innovation oxygen” in Bob Daenen’s total work. The constant oscillation between “free-art” and “applied art” has always given him the energy, the dynamism and inspiration for creative renewal, self-questioning and mental growth (fueling all his artistic activities).

Drawing remains in “plastic arts” the foundation, the starting-point for idea expression, a crucial form of defining and developing ideas and concepts. Drawing is as important as breading for singers, training for dancers, precision for surgeons. Drawing is the bridge, the pictorial language to translate 2 or 3-dimensional conceptional thinking, it is the creation-phase to correct, to adjust the concept towards the realization, it is like thinking for a philosopher.

3D-Objects are “non-functional” objects, sculptures, “bas-reliefs”, or “multiples” which are further creative expansions of Bob Daenen’s graphic and industrial design, leading to mass-produced sculptures, merging different art forms.

Writing & poetry came later in the “development process” when Daenen’s creativity searched for expressing his observations, reflections beyond “pictorial or materialistic” means. His writing forms a new creative search for beauty through the different senses, experiences, and art-disciplines, using language as a complementary tool, adding a deeper dimension. Beauty of the concept, the act, the idea, the mind, and the spiritual: life as one whole.

Photography forms a challenging and intriguing medium to explore lateral artistic avenues, stimulating inspiration and creative drive. Bob Daenen did show at his last exhibition (Tweebronnen- Leuven- nov-dec.2006) text, paintings and photo’s as one integrated totality, expressing his search-theme “Perception versus Reality”. So photography forms a new “creative module or cluster” to his oeuvre.

This website permits you to consult each of the above described activities more into detail.