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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists 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 immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their wake. A different work presents a person given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, 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). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting daily, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.