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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages 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 generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another presents a person receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

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

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.