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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their wake. In another features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and some called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful 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 shadow. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.