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

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. In another features a person receiving a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. 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 art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain 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 identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments 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 everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. 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.