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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another presents a person given a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and some demanded it to be destroyed. 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 late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.