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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another features a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). 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, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy 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 – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

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 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 highest level.