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The American painter cakes her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their wake. In another features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting 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 invites 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 bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.