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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure given a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in gilded seats – while in other works a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the work each day, and some demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.