Dana Schutz review an orgy of gloop from the painter who outraged New York

"Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. The American artist's first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but there are some big messages smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them. Schutz's approach which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality."

"The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one, a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another, a figure is given 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,"

"In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in bed."

Dana Schutz builds canvases with thick, gooey paint, prioritizing surface, brushstrokes, colour and materiality. The paintings pair dense, painterly surfaces with grotesque, surreal, cartoonish figures and metaphorical scenes. One gallery features giant-headed cyclopses, baying crowds, ritual masking and figures trampling through trash, suggesting mob mentality and societal division. Another gallery centers on the powerful: shadowy diners gorging on grapes and steak, reclining cardinals, consoling couples amid corpses, and a naked, forlorn woman. The imagery combines dreamy surreal symbolism and fleshy cartoonishness while remaining ultradense and layered, full of art-historical allusions.

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