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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a person given 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 observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests naked, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting each day, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.