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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This 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

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person receiving a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

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 support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.