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

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another presents a person given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body 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 displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced 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 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 masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.