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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work features a person receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.