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The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. In another features a person given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and others demanded 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 event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.