In this piece, American Domestic (2016), artist Willie Cole appropriates imagery from an iconic piece of the American visual art canon: Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic (1930). Cole, however, uses his unique and playful perspective to modify the original with some of his trademark symbols: irons, scorch marks, and African religious iconography. By refashioning Wood’s original, Cole is able to ask questions about the legacy of African American domestic work, homemaking, and the place of African Americans and African American artists in the broader American artistic canon.
