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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper 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 – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another presents a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual 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 how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.