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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story 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. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.