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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, 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 works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.