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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

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 Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time 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 invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work each day, and some demanded 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 recent social conflicts, 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 seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.