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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, 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, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities 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 depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended 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 experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.