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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. 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 initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work daily, and some demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.