By Marie Pfeifer
Joshua Enck’s unique sculptures, on display at Morristown’s Simon Gallery through March 17, remind me of smaller-scale versions of pieces at the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY, where over-sized architectural sculpture lives on 500 rolling acres. The materials Enck used for this particular exhibit are fascinating because they all are labor-intensive. Optic Splitter, Piraeus and Dollop, three of his wooden creations, required processes such as steaming, creating a mold and other means of manipulation to create the desired effect. Please click icon below for captions. “My inspiration often comes from older industrial forms of architecture that inspire abstract ideas,” Enck said at Friday’s well attended reception. This is an exhibit not to be missed if you are curious about architectural sculpture. Enck’s designs are easy to picture in your garden or home. The Simon Gallery at is at 48 Bank Street. FROM THE SIMON GALLERY:Simon Gallery is pleased to present Joshua Enck in an exhibit opening Tuesday, Feb. 14, and continuing through Saturday, March 17, 2012. This is Mr. Enck’s first solo exhibition at Simon Gallery. Joshua Enck creates sculptures that capture the tension between the spontaneity of the artistic process and the restraint of meticulous craftsmanship. Holding context for paradoxical notions he uses sketching to permit the formalized gestural process in its theoretical practice while consciously not working out every detail on paper. His vision grows through improvisation, allowing the individual pieces to define themselves and their rules of operation. He combines innovative modernism with the traditional impressions formed of everyday objects and images.
From antique dress forms to vernacular barn roofs to railroad cars, Enck takes inspiration from the essence of forms and in his studio permits original sculpture to develop. Drawing from the visual language of obsolescence he complements his intuitive process with great attention to detail. His works are intentionally ambiguous with a focus on color shape surface and shadow. Enck employs labor-intensive metal fabrication and woodworking techniques to realize challenging compound-complex curves, angular geometries and the intersection of disparate volumes. Using techniques such as welding and bent laminating to create the constructions, he finishes with hand-painting and distressing with patina and repetitive tool markings, embracing the perfection of the imperfections. Joshua Enck’s sculptures are striking, idiosyncratic works that suggest familiar histories not fully available to the viewer. They exhibit the unforeseen possibilities that arise through a convergence of sensual pleasure and determined restraint. The traditionally figurative combined with expressive minimalism creates very specific, at times, isolated spaces. The physicality of Enck’s compositions embrace a raw, awkward sensibility that emerges through their making, and while they are beautiful forms, they challenge prevailing notions of beauty. Enck received an MFA in Furniture Design from RISD and has a BSAS degree from the University of Illinois that included study at l’Ecole d’Architecture in Versailles, France. He is a critic in RISD’s Divisions of Foundation Studies and Furniture Design and is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including a 2006 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship. Enck’s work has been exhibited widely and is included in numerous commissions and collections. In 2007, he was a visiting critic and lecturer at the University of the Arts and Royal Society of the Arts in Delhi, India. With the University of Illinois, School of Architecture, Study Abroad Program, Versailles, France he was the Spring 2010, Instructor, Italy, Vernacular Architecture and Pedestrian Landscapes of Venice and the Cinque Terre. Enck was awarded The Fellowship in Three Dimensional Art, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, 2010 and 2011.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday 12-6pm, Saturday 12-5pm, and by appointment. Call973-538-5456 for more.
