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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing 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, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another features a person given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester picketed the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.