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The American painter cakes her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work features a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms 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 – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the crowds 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 corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester picketed the work each day, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset 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 everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.