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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work presents a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

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

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline 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, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.