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Dana Schutz smothers 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 can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. In another features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched 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. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and some called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.