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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their wake. In another presents a person given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.