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

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their wake. In another presents a person given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – 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 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting daily, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.