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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.