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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, 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 a leading painters of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered 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. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. 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 scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time 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 progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.