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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. In another presents a person given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting each day, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.