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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded 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 focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their wake. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work each day, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.