BIO

 

Vojta Safranek was born in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1974. At the age of five, his family escaped from communist Czechoslovakia, packing two suitcases under the guise of a vacation and risking everything in pursuit of a better life in America. After nearly a year spent in multiple refugee camps in Austria, they were sponsored by a foster family in coastal Massachusetts, where his parents worked at a bed and breakfast in exchange for room and board. The family eventually made their way to Southern California, settling in Orange County in 1984, where Vojta has lived and surfed ever since.

Vojta earned a Civil Engineering degree from the University of California, Irvine in 2003 and went on to obtain his engineering license. His professionalism and work ethic led him to a leading role in major infrastructure projects throughout Orange County. Yet despite his success, the work did not align with his creative passion or the healthier lifestyle he wanted to pursue in order to surf for as many years as possible. In late 2025, after 23 years with the same engineering firm, he left his career to surf more and devote himself fully to sculpting waves.

Today, Vojta works from a home studio in Mission Viejo, California. He sculpts in a converted spare bedroom and handles messier fabrication in a garage workspace. Currently his primary medium is polymer clay: he builds each wave form by hand, heat-hardens it, and refines the surface through a meticulous subtractive process using custom sanding tools. Larger pieces are developed through iterative hardening and sanding stages. Completed sculptures are presented either on handmade concealed steel shelves against black acrylic backdrops or mounted on wooden bases. Many pieces incorporate natural materials that he personally selects for their ability to suggest the type of wave that might break harmoniously with them.

Vojta's artistic vision is deeply rooted in his reverence for the interconnectedness of the natural world. He believes the phenomena that create waves - the sun's energy heating the Earth's atmosphere forming global weather systems nourished and circulated by oceanic currents, to the tectonic forces slowly sculpting the coastlines that waves break upon - reveal a remarkable elegance. He sees this elegance mirrored in our ability to perceive and appreciate the transcendent beauty of the natural world through both our physical and spiritual senses. Together with the fine-tuned precision of universal physical and mathematical constants and a growing body of recent biological, physical, and astronomical discoveries supporting the theory of intelligent design further reinforces his belief that the joy of surfing is an intended part of our existence.

In his forthcoming series, Vojta will continue his exploration of these deeply held convictions with new sculptural forms that celebrate the wonder of waves.