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The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded 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 all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, 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 baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and some demanded 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 saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.