🔗 Share this article Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Painter Who Outraged NYC The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic 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 figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick. Works in the First Gallery The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish. The Kiss by the artist. Changing Themes In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in bed. Inspirations and References This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works. The Example by the exhibitor. Meaning and Stories Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke. Controversy and Impact And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting. Aftermath and Recent Art This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal 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.