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

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. 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 artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. In another features a person receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, 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). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

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 people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – 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 displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.