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The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their wake. In another features a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like 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 provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.