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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work presents a person given a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and some demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified 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

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.