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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.