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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality 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 people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. 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 the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the work daily, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.