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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading 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 enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, 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 SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting daily, and some demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.