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A Brief History of Shana Moulton & Whispering Pines
Should an artist separate herself from the character she creates? In this film, artist Shana Moulton traces the development of her ongoing video and performance series Whispering Pines and its central protagonist Cynthia.
Moulton charts the various ways in which fiction and autobiography meld and diverge in the character of Cynthia, played by the artist herself. The title of the series is an homage to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and adopts the name of Shana’s childhood home: a trailer park for seniors near Yosemite, California.
Featuring video and music from several episodes of Whispering Pines—a mix of live action, computer animation, and original songs by Jacob Ciocci and Nick Hallett.
More information and creditsCredits
Art21 New York Close Up Created & Produced by: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Cinematography: Andrew David Watson. Additional Camera: Don Edler & John Marton. Key Grip: John Marton. Sound: Nicholas Lindner. Associate Producer: Ian Forster. Production Assistant: Paulina V. Ahlstrom, Don Edler & Maren Miller. Design: Open. Artwork: Shana Moulton. Additional Photography: Shana Moulton. Music: Jacob Ciocci & Nick Hallett. An Art21 Workshop Production. © Art21, Inc. 2011. All rights reserved.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
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Shana Moulton was born in 1976 in Oakhurst, California, where she currently resides after spending a number of years living and working in New York. Moulton’s humorous performances and videos are built around her kitschy alter ego, Cynthia, a character the artist developed during graduate school. Loosely rooted in Moulton’s childhood experiences growing up in a senior-citizen trailer park that her parents owned in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, her videos are fantastical renderings in bubblegum hues, with a hint of the dark side lurking just below the surface.
Artist at Work
