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The American painter cakes her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural 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

Her method – 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. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. In another features a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – 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 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work daily, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.