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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. 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 populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a person receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.