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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure given a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and some called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. 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, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.