Cynthia Maughan

Biography

Los Angelean Cynthia Maughan produced nearly 300 videos from 1973 to 1980, creating mostly short, direct-camera performances in which she stars in scenarios borrowed from a range of cinema and television sources. The dry wit and pictorial economy of her works also shows the influence of then contemporary Californian artists working in video, such as William Wegman, Paul McCarthy and Martha Rosler. Absorbing Hollywood's beguiling superficiality, Maughan treats the closed-circuit camera as a two-way mirror, in which and for which she prepares her public persona.

Maughan was born in 1949 in Bell, California, and died in 2019. She received her MFA from California State University, Long Beach in 1974. Her work has been shown in Documenta 6, Kassel, Germany, and in screenings and exhibitions at De Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Cubitt, London; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Long Beach Museum of Art, CA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Berkeley Art Center, CA; REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA; The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA; ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, NY; and the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA. She lived in Los Angeles until her death in 2019.