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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a crowd 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 turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites 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 narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.