Dana Schutz

Over the past decade, the Michigan-born New York-based artist has rocketed to notoriety for her large-scale paintings that unabashedly combine humor, violence and the grotesque. Influenced by cubism and German expressionism, Schutz often presents her subjects in motion, engaging in bodily displays of anxiety or fragmentation of some kind — from a smeary sneeze (more what the action feels like than what it looks like), to a nubby-headed humanoid eating its own face. Multitasking is central, and the movement of Schutz’s strokes helps to communicate an almost amused urgency. It’s totally worth the trip to Montréal’s Museum of Contemporary Art, where the show will hang through January 10.