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

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another presents a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than 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 other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other 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 individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants 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 how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.