🔗 Share this article The Artist Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: A Feast of Thick Paint from the Painter Who Outraged New York Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them. The Artist's Technique Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick. Works in the First Gallery These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish. An Embrace by Dana Schutz. Changing Themes In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed. Inspirations and References This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks. The Example by the exhibitor. Interpretation and Narratives Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism 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. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy 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 removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting. Aftermath and Recent Art It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.