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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.