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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work daily, and others demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. 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 painting at the top tier.