Shana Moulton: The Undiscovered Drawer

Shana Moulton is a chameleon. She is her surreal character, Cynthia, and Cynthia is her. Moulton grew up in a senior mobile home park in Northern California surrounded by those living and accepting and fighting ageing. This demographic will buy any product with the promise of betterment. They are hypochondriacs who self-medicate with new age spirituality.

We see many of these therapeutic products in The Undiscovered Drawer, 2013, as Moulton’s other half explores a cabinet that at first appears small in stature, but drawers conceal other drawers, opening up worlds within worlds within worlds. There are many secret compartments just for our hero, places for her to hide away her hopes and fears, dreams of a fantastical bygone era where she once had strength to unabashedly be who she is. A drawer within a draw unfolds to reveal an ergonomic keyboard, which Cynthia calmly, but full of skill drums a Coldplay instrumental with a set of roller facial massager tools, meant to remove double chins. She completes another of self-care which results in another and another adventure. Each of these keys are an invitation to somewhere else, to put on a disguise, be yourself and someone else simultaneously. The fantasy is not outside, but the idea of outside. An awareness and desire to flounce freely, to bask in the glory of the sun, and remain in that small sliver of utopia until it’s time to return home.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website