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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – 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, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde 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 mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait 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.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.