🔗 Share this article

Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work features a person given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. 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 crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the work each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.