American Gothic is one of the most famous and often recreated paintings of the 20th century. Satirising mid-western family ideals, Grant Wood painted a gaunt, sombre-looking man clutching a pitchfork beside his daughter. Kurt Cobain took that iconic concept and inverted it when he was only in high school, a sign of the untapped creativity he would later realise in Nirvana. His answer to Wood’s painting was called A New American Gothic and featured two aged punks gazing out at an apocalyptic wasteland.
Even earlier than the release of Bleach, you can sense Cobain’s reverence for punk. His lyrics, however, were more introspective, teasing out the visceral notes of punk but with a more surrealist vision – which was echoed in his art. When a collection of his unseen paintings was shown in 2017, more parallels presented themselves. An obsessive look at bodies was a consistent theme in his songs, often turning up in his best lyrics, sickly and worn down.
A mirror of his own malaise and aggressive stomach issues – “I travel through a tube and end up in your infection” and “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black” are a few examples of that motif littered through the Nirvana discography. In his paintings, the bodily obsession is more pronounced and a lot more visually arresting. Curiously, one of the most gifted lyricists in the world articulated his struggles so well without words too. Allusions to his heroin addiction rear their head, somehow more sinister than ‘Dumb’ or ‘Something in the Way’.
1992’s Incesticide cover and the album title were taken from his artwork. It features a strange, stick-like man – notably without a stomach – clutching two poppies. This creature has no discernible face, but from the suggestion of a mouth and eyes, we do get a look almost frozen in pain. A mannequin with the porcelain head of a toy baby doll scales its arm. The baby’s head is caved in.
The symbolism here, from the mental destruction of heroin to the stomach pain that caused Cobain to use it, is so rich that pointing it out almost undermines the work. Foetuses, semen, and animals are all recurring themes in his art, all chiming with the darkness that dominated him in his final years. That complicates the readings of his art because Cobain’s death makes it easier to diagnose anxieties that might not have been intentional.
His Crackbabies piece is one example that could easily be read as his fear of addiction affecting his daughter – but it could also be a macabre surrealist piece with no greater meaning. Cobain was famously a great fan of William S. Burroughs, who himself presented Naked Lunch in a random order of pages with zero context. While the tragedy of Cobain’s death subconsciously alters perceptions of his art, taking them in as standalone pieces should remind viewers more of the unique creative vision that made his songwriting such a visceral force. His artwork was chaotic, frenzied, and often ugly – just as his best songs often were.
