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As a child, Pieter Vanden Daele sculpted animal figures with plasticine and sticks of colored wax. He stared fascinated at the movements and the natural patina on the skin of the inhabitants in the aquariums at his home. Then there was also the Scheldt, which flows past his birthplace, and the numerous ponds nearby. Pieter Vanden Daele was enchanted by the mysterious underwater world.
His love for drawing and painting resulted in painting lessons. Through a job in a bronze foundry, he learned the tricks of bronze casting and polishing. He experimented until he was satisfied, thus mastering patination in his own unique way. Pieter discovered the subtleties of sculpting in bronze and its endless, creative possibilities.
All his passions merged in 2003. The artist created bronze fish sculptures and later also frogs. The animals are often common species from our environment. He finds it a great challenge to turn a simple fish into a powerful image.
With what he finds along the Scheldt, old leather, rusty nails, thin pieces of copper plate, leaves... he starts sculpting. He incorporates these materials into the original models of his sculptures, which results in rough and extensively detailed surfaces. His fish and frogs seem to live, while they are cast in bronze for eternity. Pieter: “I draw my inspiration from their movements, which are in my mind. My work is not a true-to-life copy of reality, but a creative translation of reality.”
