Dana Schutz is a contemporary American artist known for her painterly translations of intangible concepts into dynamic compositions. Schutz's paintings pose pictorial questions with humor and imagination, while nodding toward the art historical precedents of Max Beckmann and Maria Lassnig. “I’m never interested in the painting being a mirror to culture,” the artist has explained. “I think that’s really boring. What I’m interested in is painting as an affective space. The place where the hierarchies of the world can be rearranged within the space of a painting.” Born in Livonia, MI in 1976, she received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA from Columbia University in 2002. The artist achieved critical acclaim shortly after completing her degree, both with the Self-Eaters series of paintings and the debut exhibition “Frank from Observation” (2002). In the years that followed, Schutz has exhibited extensively, in both the United States and abroad. At the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the artist’s painting Open Casket (2016), depicting the body of Emmett Till, stirred considerable backlash and controversy upon its unveiling. Schutz currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY with her husband the sculptor Ryan Johnson. Today, her works are held in the collections The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among others.