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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, 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 her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another features a figure given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. 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.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in other works a couple console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the work each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.