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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. In another features a person receiving a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and some called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.