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The American painter cakes her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure receiving a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, 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 a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.