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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. In another features a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. 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 Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open 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 crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting 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 Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.