If someone tells you your art is “too much,” some of your audience is looking for exactly that much.

Too much is a statement about the listener’s preference, delivered in the language of objective fact. Intensity that overwhelms one person is precisely what another has been searching for and cannot find anywhere else. Sanding down to suit the people who find you excessive usually loses the ones who were about to become your actual audience.

When you get that note, ask who the work is for before you change anything. If the person who said it is not in that group, thank them and carry on. Then find one person who wanted exactly that much, because they are worth more to you than ten mild approvals.