🔗 Share this article

The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, 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 focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy 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, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another features a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak 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 more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.