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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace 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 crowds that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a couple console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and others demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.