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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another presents a person given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

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 Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate 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 daily, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.