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The American painter cakes her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work features a person receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.