Biography

Joshua Enck meticulously crafts playful abstract sculptures.  Through more than twenty years of independent studio practice, he has mastered labor-intensive metal and woodworking techniques that allow him to bring his quirky ideas to life.  At the University of Illinois School of Architecture (BSAS, ’99), Joshua honed his spatial thinking and developed strong design and drafting skills.  He began translating his sketches into complex finished objects while at graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, ’03).  Joshua is a versatile artist whose work unites imagination and precision at a variety of scales, from the hand-held to the monumental. 

Joshua has exhibited his work in solo shows at Space Gallery, the Rochester Institute of Technology City Art Space, Simon Gallery, and the University of Maine Museum of Art.  The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, the Society of Arts and Crafts, the Haystack School of Crafts, and the Museum for Art in Wood have honored his work.  In 2018, Joshua spent five months in India researching traditional metalsmithing as a Fulbright Nehru Scholar.

As an educator for the past twenty years, Joshua encourages his students to take risks and develop their own artistic voices.  He has taught design, drawing, woodworking, metalworking, and architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Illinois, Williams College, the University of Rochester, and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center.  In addition to regularly serving as a visiting critic, he was the Anna Ballarian Visiting Artist at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2021-2022.