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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. 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. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested 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 provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering 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 identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.