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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. A different work features a figure given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. 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 heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.