Katie Metz paints the city that is around her. Working and living out of Seattle, a city bustling with activity and nightlife, her landscapes express the immediacy of her experiences there. Though realistic depictions, Metz applies impressionistic brush strokes where scratched layers of paint make the picture quiver with life. Her individualistic style brings the viewer into a luminous, almost other worldly realm as it takes us past skyscrapers, through streets and overpasses.
In her ongoing series “Connections,” Metz expresses the city’s movement and energy through her unique technique: She builds up her surface with acrylic paint and then carves through these layers with a razor, scratching through layers of over-painting. The headlights of cars, the reflection off the highway, and the underlying grid that unifies the composition are all created by removing the top layers of paint to reveal layers of lighter color underneath.
“The subject of my work is my immediate surroundings, the plethora of images arising from my life in the heart of the city. The constant but ever-changing weave and movement of people, color, angle and aura has become an endless source of fascination and inspiration. As my vision of all of it evolves and deepens, my translation of the city’s light and soul into the language of line and paint comes through,” Metz says.
Katie Metz is showing new paintings in her solo show, “City Connections”, on view at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art, Seattle, WA through July 9th.
Atlanta, Georgia based artist 
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