A conversation with Artist-in-Residence, Evie Metz

Evie Metz (she/her) is one of Visual Arts Center of Richmond’s Annual Residents. Evie is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture, animation, and photography.

Nearing the end of her residency, we caught up with Evie in her studio to learn more about her practice and her experience here at VisArts.

 

VisArts: Evie, tell us about your creative practice. What concepts do you explore in your work?

Evie: I am a visual storyteller working primarily in sculpture and animation. This body of work is a celebration of life, spiritual transformation, and the greater forces that shape identity. My creative process centers on visualizing the unseen, emotional shifts, psychological metamorphosis, and spiritual dualities, through world-building and shifts in scale. My work weaves together the mythical, the mundane, and the deeply personal. 

What draws you to the different media you work in? 

I’ve always been drawn to the tactile nature of sculpture and the illusionary magic of animation. For me, the idea comes first, and the materials follow. I’m interested in working with materials that are able to transform into the ideas they’re representing, while also maintaining their materiality.

 How has this residency at VisArts impacted your practice? 

It has provided me with the resources and space to create work I’m not sure I could have made otherwise. Over the past several years, I’ve been developing this work on a smaller scale, and now, with room to dream big, unconfined by walls or ceilings, my ideas have become more unrestricted. This spatial freedom has allowed me to bring these worlds to life not only at a life-size scale, but in ways that feel larger than life.

Tell us more about these larger than life works you created during your residency.

I created a multi-part installation that features a female figure performing a backbend, her body forming an archway that invites viewers to pass through in a gesture of wonder, surrender, and strength.

In a corner, an animation is projected on a cyclical loop, where bodies shift and transform as they traverse the seam where two walls meet. This symbolizes the profound emotional and spiritual shifts we can experience during times of crisis and change.

Eighteen ants circle the space, each carrying a pomegranate seed. The ants evoke survival, sustenance, and communal perseverance. A monumental pomegranate sculpture sits split open on a pedestal, revealing what lies within, symbolizing spiritual abundance as well as fertility. The seeds represent small, purposeful actions that contribute to something greater.

With this work, I invite viewers to shift perspectives, open doorways, and step into spaces of wonder and connection. In these moments, the body becomes architectural, the smallest creatures carry the weight of legacy, and change is both rupture and return.

What do you want people to take away after experiencing your work?

I want people to feel a sense of wonder, but also to reflect on their own cycles of change. The work is about spiritual transformation, ancestral storytelling, and is ultimately a celebration of life.

I hope viewers walk away feeling more attuned to their own internal shifts, the physical, emotional, and spiritual changes that are part of something ongoing, something ancient, and something larger than themselves.

 

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Interests and opinions expressed by artists-in-residence are their own. Learn more about VisArts’ organizational values and code of conduct.