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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting daily, and others demanded it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.