Richard Metz is a 63-year-old Philadelphia based artist, father, husband, former art teacher, writer, and activist with a focus on environmental and social issues. He lives just outside Philadelphia, in Erdenheim, PA.  He graduated from Tyler School of Art in 1980, and received an MFA from Maine College of Art in 2000. His artwork since then has included painting on non-traditional materials, sculpture, installations, performance and street theater, printmaking, and illustrated stories. He has shown widely and his works are in many collections, private and corporate. Metz has been chosen to participate in artist residencies at different art centers around the country each summer, in places as diverse as Nova Scotia, Philadelphia, Washington State, South Carolina and Massachusetts, where he has created an ephemeral outdoor installation using natural non-toxic pigments on the trees.

 

Works in the last 15 years have explored visions of the natural world and the creatures that live there. His strong environmental activism preserving open spaces and reducing pollution necessitates a focus on many environmental health considerations in his artwork: using non-toxic materials, many natural pigments, less technological solutions, and a smaller carbon energy footprint.

 

His series about crows and ravens began at the start of the Covid epidemic and is ongoing with a focus on connecting and learning from nature by primarily working in the woods and meadows near northwest Philadelphia.