New Yorker cover artist and celebrated local painter, Gretchen Dow Simpson is showing a broad range of her work including new paintings, New Yorker covers from 1974-93 and older work in this retrospective exhibition of her work. “I am a painter with a photographic eye. I consider that my work has underpinnings of abstractness. My interests lie in the shapes, light and color of my surroundings….I like the mystery of my paintings.”

Dow Simpson attended Rhode Island School of Design and is a recent recipient of an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Bryant University. In addition to her many years designing covers for New Yorker, she has had numerous solo exhibitions in New York and New England, as well as many group exhibitions and commissions. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time Inc, and the Newport Art Museum and she is a published author as well.

Joshua Enck will be showing hand crafted sculptural forms and furniture designs in a cross section of work that includes wall hung, pedestal and floor pieces. “I work in wood and metal, manipulating these materials to create evocative, weathered surfaces and intriguing forms that occupy space.” During the construction process, Enck lets “the materials dictate constraints”, remaining “open to the unforeseen possibilities that arise when building by hand.”

Enck received an MFA in Furniture Design from RISD and also 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.