Jicky Schnee
Vanity; The Universal Deceiver and Your Name in Lights were created out of my growing belief that we are experiencing a national and global trend towards self-fixation. Your Name In Lights is intentionally garish and brightly lit to draw attention and exhort a viewer to acknowledge that we have not only allowed but with terms such as ‘influencer’ being created in social media, seem to also curiously rejoice the mounting of our own identities as a new type of golden calf. In Vanity; The Universal Deceiver, my aim was to have people actually sit and consider the role vanity plays in their own life. The gold leaf is beautiful and alluring yet it moves with the slightest breeze, flaking and falling away from the dresser as does the superficiality born of one’s own narcissism. False Faces and the poem paper-cuts arose from my experiences at dinners in NYC where the first question that is ordinarily asked of you by a new acquaintance is, ‘what do you do?’ and then the ensuing question ‘and what are you working on now?’ My experience has been that if the answers to these questions do not sufficiently impress your listener, you are courteously treated as an inconvenience for the rest of the evening. This kind of hobnobbing and social climbing saps any creative energy from an exchange-- and I find that with Instagram and other forms of social media, it is almost as if one is constantly at that same dinner party, being forced to listen to others talk themselves up and engage in relationships that have minimal depth.
Jicky Schnee is an artist, actor and writer. She received her B.A. in Fine Art and Art History from Rice University and went on to appear as a principal in films alongside Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, Rip Torn and F. Murray Abraham. She has shown at Bibro New York City, The Sewall Gallery in Houston, AMP in Provincetown, Mc Daris in Hudson, NY and Collective, Woodstock where she is both the founder and curator. She has written a paper-cut and poetry book titled A Garden of Thorny Verse and a children’s book, The New Color, which is in process for publication early next year.
