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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, 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 roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another presents a figure receiving a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

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

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands 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 a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the work each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.