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The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration 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 all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy 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, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work 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 Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, 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 painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.