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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going 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 initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a person receiving a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience 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.