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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.