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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. In another features a person receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, 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 history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands 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 Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.