XXXXXL began with conversations with artists who were working bigger. Their excitement came with an understanding of what that ambition demands: room to create, materials to invest in, and a willingness to commit before knowing where a finished work might find a home. Metal Haus Gallery wanted to make room for that commitment. Take the risk, and we’ll take the ride with you.

Curated by founder Dani Arrecis, the exhibition brings oversized works into the gallery’s lived-in San Francisco loft. Here, scale becomes a personal encounter. Art shifts the balance of a room, changes the relationship between furniture and walls, and asks those living alongside it to adjust. Maintaining the feeling of a home is central to the installation, even as the works push its spatial boundaries.

The artists approach that scale through distinctly different materials and concerns. Michael E. Goldman reconfigures road signage, unsettling the familiar language of rules and authority. Ian the Meow uses soft sculpture and a recognizable cat character to invite connection and conversations around mental health. Greg Wieting’s layered acrylic surfaces explore fracture, accumulation, and the emotional possibilities of abstraction, while Steven Stodor brings glitter, paint, and resin to a triangular panel, drawing on geometry, symbolism, and contemplation.

Seyed Alavi’s work considers home, displacement, and belonging through the human figure. Collin Sample explores the interior lives of Black men and boys, giving space to vulnerability and the pressures of masculinity. Jeff Musser examines the construction of race and the histories that shape identity. Together, these works give physical presence to subjects that extend well beyond their dimensions.

For Arrecis, collecting begins with a work that makes you feel something. Scale can intensify that encounter until it becomes enveloping, even overwhelming: the goosebumps when a large work hits just right. Living with pieces of this size is a new experience for the curator, too, making the exhibition an ongoing discovery shared with visitors.

XXXXXL invites viewers to reconsider the space they have and the art they might welcome into it. A smaller home can hold an ambitious work, and that work can change how home feels. Let yourself imagine living with something big.