About
Willem Botha
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1962, the artist initially sculpted for the National Defense Force before spending decades as an elite special effects artist with over 70 films to his credit. He retired from the film industry in 2017 to resume sculpting full-time, eventually relocating his studio to Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2020. Today, his work is held in exclusive private collections worldwide.His sculptures embrace a classical approach to human and animal anatomy, defined by an intense dramatic tension that subverts gravity. By infusing his compositions with movement, he deliberately risks their structural stability to capture a state of precarious balance—revealing a profound sense of grace and nobility in the process. He creates under the guiding principle of Leonardo da Vinci: art is never finished, only abandoned.
Willem has a classical approach to sculpture. He likes to explore the body, whether human or animal.
Most of his works present a dramatic tension with an unbalanced perception of gravity. He sometimes likes to introduce movement, it is then endangering his compositions which confine to the unstable balance, while revealing each time the nobility and the grace. His admiration for the antique can be seen in his most recent works.
His pieces are fragmented, he strips his models, he thus conditions the spectator's gaze, he upsets it, he hypnotizes it. Willem believe in the words of Leonardo da Vinci that his Art is never finished, only abandoned.