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

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work features a figure given a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

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, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse 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 Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, 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 professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.