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

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard 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 turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work 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 sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.