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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but some big messages 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 generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. In another features a person given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat 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 landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in 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 big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.