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The American painter cakes her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another presents a figure receiving a large disguise 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 observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, desolate and helpless in a 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 pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (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 artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and others demanded it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene 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 same side. In retrospect, in a society 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.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.