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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another presents a figure given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American 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 profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester picketed the work daily, and others demanded it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.