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

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting daily, and some 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. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period 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 artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out 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 highest level.