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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading 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 plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the work each day, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.