Greg Metz has exhibited artworks nationally and internationally in a variety of venues including: Grand Palace, Amsterdam, Koln Cathedral, Koln Germany, General Post Office, Dublin, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Washington National Mall, Dallas Museum of Art, San Antonio Art Museum, Arlington Art Museum and numerous public and private collections. His work is primarily issue oriented and political in nature focusing on art as propaganda and editorial, earning him reviews in San Francisco's Art Week, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Mother Jones, San Diego Chronicle, Boston Herald, Washington Times, NPR radio, New York Times as well as numerous regional publications.
He has designed award-winning sets for theater. He was awarded the Otis Dozier Travel Grant from the Dallas Museum of Art (1992) to travel to Berlin to observe the effects of political reverb on the Visual Arts from East Germany's annexation to the west following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. He received a New Forms Initiative Grant in 1992 funded by the NEA. and the Rockefeller/Warhol Foundation to create a work in the Trinity corridor to address conflicts in interest between the disenfranchised American Indian Community and the corporate institutions banking opposite sides of the river during he Columbus Sesquicentennial celebration. He was twice awarded the 'Best of Dallas ' award from the Dallas Observer for his work in exploring the role of the arts in public.
Greg Metz initiated an 'Artist Advisory Board' to have input into the Dallas Museum of Arts programming. He was the lead artist on the initial prototype for the Dallas Master Plan's 'Percent for the Arts Program. He worked to establish 'Project Teamwork' bringing art education into public schools through collaboration with the Dallas Museum of Art. He Co-founded Dallas Artist Research and Exhibition, as a non-profit organization to show and support alternative artists research works, of which he chaired, as president, for 5 years and lead to the founding of the McKinney Ave. Contemporary an alternative arts and performance center in Dallas.
Metz has continued his public arts participation with his students, creating artistic, innovative cars to compete in the annual Houston Art Car Parade. They have successfully won 4 years in a row. He has also employed his installation design experience to presenting- provocative to sublime -first rate exhibitions in our Main Gallery at UTD transcending the limitations of a contained space.
His current work involves several directions of exploration. One series of work, "Icons of Indictment", focuses on the use of contemporary figures caught in scandalous issues and portraying those images as historical 3-D editorial relief cartoons. This is done using a traditional casting procedures, yet rarely employed in editorial characterization, projecting the historical reference into iconic providence. Metz also uses traditional techniques in atypical ironic constructs to render social commentary on provocative contemporary issues such as the meat industry, religious contradiction, social inequities, political corruption and tactical spin vernacular. He often exhibits in venues that are public and non-art related. This past year he was awarded the Critics Pick as “Best Visual Artist” by The Dallas Observer. This is his 3rd time to be awarded this distinction.