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Landon Metz (born 1985, Phoenix, Arizona) is a New york-based abstract painter and conceptual artist, known for his painting-based installations. He co-hosts the podcast Abundance Zine with writer Christopher Schreck. Together they have interviewed Dan Colen, Raul de Nieves, Laraaji, and Carly Mark of Puppets and Puppets. Metz is an active member of the Artist Rights Society, New York.

Paintings
Metz’s work is commonly composed of dye and stretched canvas, hung flush to one another. The dyed compositions span multiple adjacent and adjoining stretched panels. His installations and exhibitions are often developed in response to the existing architecture of the display space. Karen Kedmey writes that, “The [dye and canvas] series stems from the artist’s effort to make the medium of painting more interactive and experiential, and to integrate it into the surrounding environment.”

Brook Mason describes Metz’s painting process, writing, “Metz literally pours acrylic blue dye onto unprimed, unstretched canvases, and in doing so, achieves a sense of stain. ‘The dye literally flows over the canvas and creates a new form,’ he points out.” Writer and collaborator, Christopher Schreck, writes, “The applied liquid then takes several days to dry, during which time Metz would refine shapes, alter opacity, and create gradient effects by subtly shifting the canvas’ resting position, allowing gravity to influence the creation of form.” In an interview with Forbes, Metz described his work stating, “There’s this a core sentiment in my practice that’s dealing with notions of authorship and relinquishing formal roles and hierarchies of authorship, so let’s say that the most simple place that it becomes apparent is in the materials. It’s dye, that’s the paint, so it’s really merging with the fibers of the canvas and the way the canvas reacts and pushes back against the medium, you get this natural vernacular that is beyond my control. There’s a lot of chance in the depth of all these little holes.” Metz cites the Arizona desert as a primary influence for his use of color.

While Metz’s most common multi-panel format is the diptych, his largest discrete work, titled MMXXII XL, was produced for the exhibition A Different Kind of Paradise, at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, which opened in September, 2022. The work consists of eight adjoining panels, each 80” tall by 64” wide, and references the panoramic hanging of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (Nymphéas) at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.

Other media
Metz has produced a number of works in other media, including sculpture, furniture, sound, film and poetry. In 2018, he exhibited a sound work, which he described as “a solemn and meditative atmosphere,” alongside a series of sculptures in stone, and painted wood at Von Bartha Gallery, Basel. He produced a film and furniture for an exhibition at Andersen’s Contemporary in 2015.

Editions & Multiples
In 2022, Zinck Editions published Metz’s untitled edition of 30 with four artist proofs, in mirror polished bronze.

Metz produced two Fundraising Editions for Printed Matter, displayed at the independent bookstore’s presentation at Art Basel in 2018.

In August, 2022, Finnish textile and clothing company Marimekko announced a collaboration with Metz: Marimekko x Landon Metz. The capsule line includes dresses, shirts, a skirt, and scarf with prints based on Metz’s artworks. Rebekka Bay, Marimekko’s Creative Director, described the collaboration stating, “Architectural structures are seen mimicking organic material, which in turn take an almost 3D-printed aesthetic.”

Metz collaborated with New York clothing company, Stòffa, on the design of a cotton suit, “EDITION 003,” in 2021.

Metz produced the artwork for Kasper Bjørke Quartet’s album The Fifty Eleven Project (2018).

Exhibitions
Metz’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at his representing galleries—Sean Kelly Gallery, New York and Los Angeles; Von Bartha, Basel and Copenhagen; Galleria Minini, Brescia and Milan; and Waddington Custot, London.

"Michael Jackson Penthouse," 2014
Metz’s first painting-based installation was presented in 2014 at Retrospective Gallery, Hudson, NY—an off-site project of New York-based art dealer Zach Fueuer—titled, “Michael Jackson Penthouse.” The paintings were hung to engage with the architecture, and surround the viewer. Art historian and critic, Alex Bacon wrote for the Brooklyn Rail, “[Metz’s] intervention, while intimately involved with the architectural terms of that space, facilitates rather than dictates the viewer’s movement through it.”

Later Exhibitions
In 2015, James Fuentes Gallery presented an installation of Metz’s first shaped canvases, hung in a manner to emphasize the architecture of the gallery, and surround the viewer. Alex Bacon wrote of the exhibition, “These shaped canvases serve to activate [the white cube] by triangulating the viewer through the course he or she charts through it, which the canvases mediate and influence, for example through the various optical and physical experiences they elicit.”

Continuing to produce shaped canvases in 2016, Metz’s work was the subject of two simultaneous solo exhibitions at Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, and Francesca Minini, Milan, where he presented his first 3D, two-part paintings.

Metz’s exhibition, Asymmetrical Symmetry, hosted by Sean Kelly Gallery, New York in 2018, was conceived as an installation, in response to the gallery’s newly renovated space, designed by Toshiko Mori. The exhibition included a series of canvases hung from the ceiling of the gallery.

In October, 2022, Laraaji performed inside of Metz's exhibition, A Different Kind of Paradise, at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.

Institutional Exhibitions
In 2014, Metz was the artist in residence at the Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare in Bolzano, Italy. In 2018, his work was the subject of a solo exhibition at Museo Pietro Canonica in Rome. Metz was featured in a group exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art in New York, and Greffes, curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto at Villa Medici in Rome.

Publications
Metz’s work and studio life have been the subject of publications by Mousse, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Libraryman, and Vimmerby Rinkeby.

While preparing for his exhibition Michael Jackson Penthouse, Metz was commissioned to photograph his artistic process for the Libraryman publication, West Street Studio: Landon Metz. The book included a conversation between Metz and Diego Cortez, as well as a poem written by Metz. A special edition of 25 copies included a woodblock print, and the volume’s slipcase was upholstered in an original dye and canvas painting.

Personal Life
Metz grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, “Born to a mother with Italian parents, and a father whose father was Mexican and mother was Dutch and French.”

He was involved in the local punk scene as a teenager. After attending two semesters at ArtCenter College of Design before dropping out, he moved to Vancouver, B.C, where he met his wife. The couple moved back to Los Angeles, before relocating to New York City in 2009.