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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, 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 exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – 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 saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.