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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another presents a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, 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 one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work daily, and some called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.