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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks 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

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one 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 given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. 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 public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched 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 profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.