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The American painter cakes her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work features a person given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.