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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work features a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, 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 man in green recline in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.