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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness 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, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time 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 analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.