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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a scene strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – 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 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.