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

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another presents a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in 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 an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. 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 masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.