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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color 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.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a person receiving a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. 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 a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.