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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows 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 figure receiving a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. 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 furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.