The social and political climate in which Wood's art flourished bears certain striking similarities to America today, as national identity and the tension between urban and rural areas reemerge as polarizing issues in a country facing the consequences of globalization and the technological revolution. Wood portrayed the tension and alienation of contemporary experience. By fusing meticulously observed reality with fables of childhood, he crafted unsettling images of estrangement and apprehension that pictorially manifest the anxiety of modern life.