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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a person given a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction 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 artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.