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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. In another presents a figure given a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the work each day, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.