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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded 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 art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks 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 artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites 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 themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.