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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, 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 elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. 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.