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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. In another presents a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like 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 public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story 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. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.