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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another presents a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony 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 mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the painting each day, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story 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 society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.