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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. A different work features a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester picketed the work daily, and some demanded 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. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.