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The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work features a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, 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 mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait 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.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. 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 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the work daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.