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The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant celebration 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 generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, 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. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work features a person given a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – 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 demonstrated against the painting daily, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.