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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.