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The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. In another features a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – while in other works a couple console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in references. There’s 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. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, 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. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the work each day, and some called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified 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 professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.