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

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another presents a figure given a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than 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 sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying 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, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about that. 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 racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the work daily, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.