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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – 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 immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. A different work features a person given a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests naked, desolate and helpless 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 a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.