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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded 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 focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their wake. In another features a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd 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 crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation 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, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – 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 time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.