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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 tribute of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of ugly supporters. 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 waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies naked, desolate and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example 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 symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.