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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty 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

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. In another presents a person receiving a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. 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 history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.