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The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse 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 shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.