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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if 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 bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably 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 art at the highest level.