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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural 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 – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.