The sometimes disturbing, always intriguing, figurative oil paintings of Louie Metz juxtapose flawless technical detail with a raw, emotionally charged stimulus. An urbane and unique perspective tempers the work, fusing old world classicism onto an outsider art aesthetic. Sensual, confrontational nudes with emaciated souls recline and hesitate in the foreground of plush, photo-realistic landscapes  or darkly psychological tableaus.

Louie Metz was born in an army hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Louie’s father traveled often in the Marines, while Louie’s mother was a Holocaust refugee who currently works as a beautician. At the age of nine, his parents divorced and Louie moved with his mother to Los Angeles where he attended Hillel Hebrew Academy. To him, Hebrew school “represented a perfect cultural biosphere for those within the specialized parameters of orthodox Judaism, and I couldn’t relate because my home life was extremely secular.

In 1980, at the age of fourteen, Louie  and some friends formed Mad Society, a punk band that was an honest  expression  and response to their surroundings. The band's angry kid punk act received glowing press and popularity in the heyday of LA punk. After their debut EP, Mad Society disbanded and Louie continued to play bass for a slew of grunge garage bands such as Spoon, Blitzkrieg, Screaming Night Hogs, and Tidus Sloan.

In 1986, he enrolled at Otis Parsons to study Life Drawing, Art History, and Art Theory with well-known art critic Dave Hickey, and Painting with Carol Caroompas. Louie received his B.F.A. from Otis Parsons in1990 and entered the art world that summer with his first solo show. His early paintings were towering examples of craft eclipsing content, works five feet tall and eight feet wide, described as a cross between Anselm Kiefer, Dr. Seuss, Dali, and Zap Comix.

The recent works of Louie Metz have earned him a special distinction among the Los Angeles art community, where he has had numerous shows. Louie is a prolific artist, casting local Silverlake personalities to model as his intense survivors. His subjects are usually offset by anthropomorphic landscapes: a suburban backyard, and apartment courtyard, a sweeping vista, all rendered in a way that reflects the subject’s inner psychological reality.  “Luckily the models are usually going through some kind of psycho drama,’ he says, “which makes it interesting.” There is a traditional aspect to Louie's work that reflects a deep interest in the work of the old masters; however, Louie conveys a classicism without investing the work with a classical style,”  I don't usually like contemporary art that looks pretentiously old masterish as I find that its a prevailing tendency for figurative painters to stylize their paintings with too many jokey pop-cultural references and self conscious chiaroscuro.

Complexity and straight forwardness, tradition and personal vision, beauty and brutality; are issues that conflict in life and art, yet because of their importance to the painter they must be dealt with and synthesized in his work.