Grace Metzler
In the paintings by Grace Metzler, there is a feeling of ripe decay; a potential for danger in a near future. In her reinterpretations of the 16th century panoramic landscape painting, couples quarrel and unite under a foreboding night sky. Hungry for life, they won't give in. Reworking classical art historical motifs with non-binary subjects, she disrupt and re-tell common narratives. It is about transgression, breaching boundaries, being limitless. Dream and reality merged. Nature and culture reworked. One can no longer be the resource for appropriation by the other. In our contemporary culture, the last constraints have been muddied, if not turned into amusement parks, as in Metzler’s painting Untitled (Arena) (2019) – language, social behaviour, mental events – nothing convincingly demands for separation of man/animal. An illegitimate promise that engenders anxiety and euphoria in equal measure.
Born 1989 in New York, US
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, US
EDUCATION
2017
MFA, Hunter College, New York, US
2012
BFA, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, US
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
Naturally Selected, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
It’s show time; everyone’s a winner at the end, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK
2019
Oxen, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
In the Summertime, Danese/Corey, New York, US
2018
Solo Exhibition, Half Gallery, New York, US
Aporia, David & Schweitzer, Brooklyn, New York, US
2017
Look Her Way, Theirry Goldberg Gallery, New York, US
Upstairs Art Fair, Hamptons, New York, US
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
V1 XX - Twenty years of V1 Gallery, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2021
Alone in This Together, M. David & Co., Brooklyn, NY, United States
Sunsets on Mars are Blue, Arts Center at Duck Creek, East Hampton, NY, United States
Contemporary Domesticity, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK
Lampadephoria, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2020
Today’s Special #2, curated by Maximillian Brown, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2018
A Scratch in Time, Thierry Goldberg, New York, US
New “Bad” Painting, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
SELECTED AWARDS
2017 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, New York, US
