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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a person given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the work daily, and some called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, 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

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.