🔗 Share this article

The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters 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 shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. In another features a figure given a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David 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 interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.