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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

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 stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

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 young African-American who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting daily, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.