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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. A different work presents a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the crowds that support 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 – whereas in other works a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites 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 narratives: the ruling class, 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 body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting each day, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. 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 how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.