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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another features a figure given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in gilded seats – while in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, 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 two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.