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The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another presents a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.