Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
My name is Ryan Mettz, I’m an artist living in Brooklyn, NY. I do a lot of stuff, but I’d say the three things I put most of my time into are painting, tattooing, and filming skating.
Are there any influences that are core to your work?
I try to take in as much information as I can, seeing shows, visiting other studios, listening to interviews… I love to learn about other people’s ideas and processes and see if there’s some way I can apply it to what I’m doing. Beyond that I’d say living in the city is the biggest influence on my current work. The way things look, the amount of people and cars, the constant energy, friends, and experiences I have here all end up being part of my paintings in some way.
Is there a moment you look back on as being formative to your identity as an artist?
There are so many and I feel like they still happen constantly. If I think way back to something that really blew my mind, I remember going to Philly for the first time when I was on tour, I think I was 18. Some friends of ours in this band Algernon Cadwallader let us crash in a warehouse they lived in called Big Mama’s with a bunch of other people that later became close friends and big inspirations. Inside of the warehouse was all built out DIY rooms with multiple levels and windows inside; art everywhere, recording studio, instruments all over the place, screen printing press, DIY tape and record inserts, collections of things that other guests had left behind.
Everyone made stuff and did stuff together, it was amazing. The amount of creativity that smacked you in the face when you walked in that place was staggering. I think it really changed my life just to be around it, and everyone there was so supportive of me and the things I was doing. At some point I stayed there for a short time and painted a mural on one of the walls with my friends. I think just having someone show some interest and give me a space to do something motivated me a lot at a time when I didn’t have much direction.
The city scenes that are commonly depicted in your work are busy. Perspective and scale are warped to fill almost every nook & cranny with someone doing something, to the point that the viewer can practically hear the commotion of the environment depicted. What draws you to these scenes? Is there something you want the viewer to take away from these works?
Different things will draw me to a scene, it could be because of one moment I experience and I want to paint something about that, or it could be based off of some place I’ve spent a lot of time. There’s not really one specific reason, it always changes. A lot of times I would paint one experience but recently I realized I can put multiple experiences into one scene.
One recent painting I realized I put myself in the painting multiple times along with a couple other people. The people in my paintings are random but sometimes based off of people I know or myself, but they’re not supposed to really be anybody… and at the same time can actually be anybody if the viewers feel that way.
What I realized after seeing people react to the paintings is that I want the viewer to relate to the work and possibly see themselves in the painting or recognize the scene. I’ve heard people say things like, “I was there that day!” or “that’s my bike!” or “ I drove by that McDonald’s today!”… and I love that the most.
Describe your current studio. Do you have any rituals when you get there?
I’ve been in the same studio for 6 or so years. It’s in a big space with a bunch of my friends, we each have our own little partitioned zones and mine is pretty secluded so it makes it easy to focus if it’s busy in there. I’m struggling with space more and more as I make larger paintings, but it works well for now and I love being around my friends.
I wouldn’t say I have any rituals, but usually I’ll sit at my desk and draw for a bit or try to get some administrative stuff on the computer out of the way. I have a record player so I’ll play records or just listen to music with headphones. I found listening to mixes on cassette is the most efficient because they play for longer and you don’t have to think about changing the song on your phone or flipping the record.
What is your experience with burnout as an artist?
I don’t allow myself to get burnt out, I don’t really believe in it for myself. Since I have different avenues of expression, I can adapt them as needed. If I spend 3 days in a row in the studio painting all day, I’ll need a break so then I can go out and film or go to the shop and do tattoos. Then after a day or two of that I’m ready to go back and paint again.
I do struggle with balancing everything in my life, I’m an extreme person so I tend to throw myself into everything I’m doing creatively, and other areas of my life will suffer. I will often forget to eat for an entire day or paint until 2 or 3 AM and wake up at 8:30 in the morning to go back to the studio.
I think in the last 6 months I averaged 4 hours of sleep a night which is really bad for you. I’m hoping to develop a healthier routine next year. I think that it’s because of capitalism that its like this, but at some point, I realized if I want to get everything done I have to sacrifice something and unfortunately sleep is the easiest thing to cut. I tell that to people all the time who are complaining about not having enough time to do something… sleep less do more.
Does your tattoo practice influence how you paint?
Tattooing influenced my painting because it gave me practice simplifying images to convey the most amount of information with the least amount of detail. Now I think my painting style lets me be a little looser with my tattoos. Especially since tattooing is so boring these days, with every other person on Earth doing clean traditional tattoos, it’s lost a lot of the excitement for me. I try to be more expressive and intuitive while I’m tattooing and it feels like the tattoos come out with a better look. I have more and more people asking me for something that reflects my painting style.
Do you have any travel experiences that are formative to you as an individual?
When I was younger, I travelled constantly, tattooing all around the world. I would go wherever I could whenever. The first big trip I had that changed my whole shit up was going to visit my friend Wan in Korea. I could write a few pages about that experience but at the time I hadn’t experienced that many places, so everything was totally different and exciting to me. Working with Wan taught me how to relax and have more fun, not to take things so seriously. It taught me how to treat people, how to drink soju and eat food all night, how to hang out with friends, I dunno it’s a really big memory from my life. That was over 10 years ago and since then Wan and I have travelled all over the world together and continue to have formative experiences.
How does your environment influence how you work or what you produce?
I think living in the city keeps me motivated. I like getting up and getting out every morning and I get excited to go make stuff. There’s a real energy that can be overwhelming but also invigorating. As much as I like to have some peace, or be living by the beach and surf every day, I wouldn’t trade this lifestyle for anything right now. I feel like it’s too important to what I’m doing.
How does the tattoo shop culture in New York differ from the culture in other cities that you’ve worked in?
I didn’t travel much when I first moved to New York because everybody tends to come here from all over. People travel from all over the country and world to NYC so I end up tattooing a lot of people from out of town. I feel like other cities aren’t as much of destination as NY.
I love traveling though, there’s so much cool stuff going on and cool shops. To be honest Pops Tattoo in San Diego is one of my favorites. It reminds me of Greenpoint [Tattoo Co.] in the sense that everyone is a homie and hangs out all day, there are constantly homies stopping by and hanging out and getting tattooed and its really fun to work there.
I love when everyone is on top of each other tattooing and shooting the shit, homies stopping by with beers and hanging out, painting out in the back… shops should be loose and full of love for everyone that comes in. I think that it’s the people that you’re with that make a city fun to be in ya know?
How does your creative community now compare to your creative community when you were younger?
When I was younger most of my creative community was music based. I was pretty much making paintings alone in my bedroom and slowly met people who had more serious painting practices. Now I have a seemingly endless network of friends who are creative, it’s insane. Within that I have a tight community of close friends that have helped me out immensely. Most opportunities that I’ve had are from one of my homies putting me on or including me in something. Sometimes I wonder if you ever max out the amount of people that you know or if it can go on for eternity.
What is one of the larger challenges you and/or other artists are struggling with these days and how do you see it developing?
One of the obvious ones for most of us is time, space, and money! It’s getting more and more expensive to live in New York to the point where I don’t know if it can be sustainable. It’s a bit of a pickle to feel like I need to live here but constantly hustle to be able to do it.
What do you collect?
I’m not a huge collector but I have a pretty extensive zine and art book collection. I try to collect anything my friends make. I want to collect art from people more but I don’t really have anywhere to keep it. I do buy records, mostly jazz records (I like stuff from New York from the 50s-70s) but I’ll also buy dub and dancehall records, some soul and stuff too. I’ve shot a lot of film through the years and that feels like collecting memories or something. And I love photo strips, I try to always do photo booths when I’m around them. The prices are going up but it used to be a bargain! Five dollars for 4 portraits, pressed and printed out while you wait, that’s a deal.
Interview conducted by Luca Lotruglio.