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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration 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 figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. In another features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. 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 two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.