Randy Colbath

For Randy Colbath, a sculptor from Maine who crafts spectacularly delicate forms from salvaged wood mainly using power tools, his material of choice is simultaneously inspiring and challenging. Discussing a recent series, he explains his preference for “using unfigured wood painted black. It dematerializes the wood,” he says, “and resembles fabricated metal.” However, Colbath also derives inspiration from the unique properties of each piece of wood he approaches, forming its imperfections and quirks into prominent features of his completed pieces.

Colbath’s creations occasionally evoke figurative shapes like human bodies and plant forms, but more often he crafts enigmatic objects that especially evoke surrealism and minimalism. Certain pieces remind one of the smooth abstraction of Constantin Brancusi, whereas others disrupt the pure shapes and exquisitely smooth lines with jarring holes and cracks and aggressively pointed ends. This tension between stripped, formal, occasionally fragile objects and the nearly violent, tangible forcefulness of the material make Colbath’s sculptures a fascinating synthesis of physical and ephemeral traits.