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The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – 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. 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, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives 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 depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: 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 body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the work daily, and some called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.