| Dana Schutz’s early paintings of distorted humans and unearthly scenes earned her acclaim for their absurdist sensibility and a painterly style reminiscent of Gaugin. Eschewing naturalism, Schutz’s work favors visceral feeling over faithful visual representation. The subjects of her paintings are no less surreal than the way in which they’re rendered; a series of “self-eaters” depicts cannibalistic human figures with the ability to eat and re-grow body parts, while trysts and parties take place in fantastical environments in which the keys of a piano might be replaced with human fingers. |
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Éva Pelczer
Dana Schutz, Face Eater, 2004. Oil on canvas, 23 x 18 in. Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery.Dana Schutz’s early paintings of distorted humans and unearthly scenes earned her acclaim for their absurdist sensibility and a painterly style reminiscent of Gaugin. Eschewing naturalism, Schutz’s work favors visceral feeling over faithful visual representation. The subjects of her paintings are no less surreal than the way in which they’re rendered; a series of “self-eaters” depicts cannibalistic human figures with the ability to eat and re-grow body parts, while trysts and parties take place in fantastical environments in which the keys of a piano might be replaced with human fingers. Laden with wry symbolism, these paintings reinterpret the physicality of the real world and offer sly commentary on the human condition in modernity, and more subtly on painting itself.
In her work since 2007, Schutz moves towards still lifes that echo the bizarre scenes of her earlier paintings. Incorporating velvet and other mixed media into her canvases, Schutz continues the exploration of material subversion that is present in some of her early work, such as her physically distended Self Portrait as a Pachyderm (2005). The skewed perspective and twisted sense of space found in all of Schutz’s work continues to play a large role in emphasizing the surreality of her new paintings. Part of this recent work is the series I’m Into… (2008), in which Schutz fills in the subject of the title with terms she has found others researching on Google. These representations of the purported narcissism (or is it loneliness?) of the technologically-driven world are full of wit and metaphor, examined through the delightfully weird and morbid lens of Schutz’s imagination. Her new work is as unmoored to clear interpretation as ever, but there is a distinctly humorous political and social commentary to be found in it. In her Singed series of this year, which includes a picnic scene, a still life, and a portrait of a man eating chicken, the main subjects are only half present: black edging crudely gives the impression that the missing parts have been burned off. What remains of these subjects is a seemingly hollow descriptor of what should have been a complete scene. The gleeful mockery in the new paintings seems to be directed at the genre itself, but also in a larger sense at modern memory and the replacement of personal interactions with digital, internet-based ones. While the gory element of Schutz’s more visceral work makes less of an appearance, her new work is imbued with all the sly wit, symbolism, and expressive surrealism that is becoming the signature element of Schutz’s painting.
