🔗 Share this article The Artist Dana Schutz Review: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Artist Who Outraged NYC Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them. The Artist's Technique Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick. Works in the First Gallery The works in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. In another presents a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste. The Kiss by Dana Schutz. Shift in Focus In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed. Influences and Allusions This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works. The Example by Dana Schutz. Meaning and Stories Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites 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 ruling class, and the crowds that they bait. Controversy and Impact And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting. Aftermath and Recent Art It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.