Statement
Artist Statement
It takes a very special type of person to acknowledge and appreciate the craftsmanship and beauty of everyday, commonplace objects. It requires even more intuition and inventive creativity for a person to elevate those discarded or devalued items… to combine things that were never intended to be anything other than what they were designed to be… and create art with them.
Working with various theater companies for the past 20+ years has earned me a unique appreciation for creating something from “nothing”. My love of disassembling and reassembling into something new grew from manifesting scenery and props for every imaginable (and unimaginable) setting and circumstance from a pile of lumber, cans of paint and an idea. For me, imagination is the purest art form.
My Woah-Botz sculptures are created to manifest joy and excitement by incorporating recognizable, common and ordinary individual parts that have lived out their usefulness. In my process, I have adopted the motto of “Keep it out of the landfill and put it on the mantle” to illustrate my desire to use mostly found objects in all of my artwork.
Creating something special and unique with each piece is important to me as an artist. With endless possible combinations of an endless variety of parts, no two of my sculptures are ever exactly the same. Each is an original. There are no reproductions. Just like people, there are only ever one-of-a-kinds!
Jeremy Wilken
Woah-Botz
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About the Woah-Botz
Each sculpture is a one-of-a-kind original created by Multi-Media Sculpture Artist Jeremy Wilken from "found objects". Everyday items are sourced from thrift stores, garage sales, flea markets and even saved from the trash! Each sculpture comes with a certificate of authenticity (AKA Birth Certificate) listing the Title of the piece, Date Of Creation, Number of the piece and bears the artists signature.
Started in 2013 while living in New Zealand, Jeremy began using his 20+ years of theatrical scenery and prop-building background to tinker with creating something new, interesting, unique AND sustainable. The Woah-Botz workshop has relocated MANY times... from Kingston, New Zealand - Key Largo, FL - Eugene, OR - Hagerstown, MD and now resides (hopefully permanently) just outside the tiny town of DeRuyter, NY.
To date there are over 1100 Robot, Ray-Gun and Rocket Ship sculptures in more than 16 countries around the world (and growing all the time).
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About the Artist
Multi-Media Artist Jeremy Wilken was always “The Artistic One” in his family. After twenty years of spending his free-time creating scenery and props for various theatrical performances, being able to assemble various odds and ends into practically anything has led him to create this very whimsical line of “found object” robot sculptures. Officially named “Woah-Botz” by his then 6-year-old son, since their introduction in 2013, his pieces can now be found in 16 countries around the world (and counting).
Due to their “upcycled” parts, each sculpture is genuinely unique giving each an individual personality while still reflecting the style and flair that the Woah-Botz have become known for. Each sculpture is named, numbered and given a Certificate of Authenticity noting the date of creation.
Website: https://woah-botz.square.site
