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The American painter cakes her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another presents a person receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green recline in gilded seats – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. 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 bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting each day, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that experience a changed artist. 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.