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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a person receiving a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal 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 art at the highest level.