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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds 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 sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical 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 themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.