🔗 Share this article The Artist Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: A Feast of Thick Paint from the Artist Who Outraged NYC Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them. Schutz's Approach Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced 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. Initial Exhibition Pieces The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. In another presents a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish. An Embrace by Dana Schutz. Shift in Focus In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green recline in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed. Influences and Allusions This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods 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 elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks. The Example by the exhibitor. Meaning and Stories Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. 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 ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke. The 2017 Scandal And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered 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 painting each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting. Aftermath and Recent Art It could have ruined 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, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.