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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another features a person given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the work daily, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.