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The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her 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.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another features a person given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the work each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.