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

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and some called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.