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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings 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 manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. In another features a person given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.