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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through 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 era – is focused on 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 keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. 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 SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and some demanded 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 event. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.