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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery 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. In one depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another features a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, 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 Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.