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Punny Girl: Angelica Hicks On Visual Wit, Gucci, and Social Media

Angelica Hicks
Angelica Hicks | Image courtesy of Twyla

New York-based illustrator Angelica Hicks is taking Instagram by storm with her witty, tongue-in-cheek designs. Whether she’s poking fun at celebrity culture, politics, or social constructs, there’s a “punny” intellectualism at the root of each illustration – and her 50k+ instagram followers seem love it.

Here, she discusses her unique work/image play, her collaborations with Gucci and Twyla, and the power of the familiar.

Angelica Hicks

Culture Trip: With such a large Instagram following, do you consider your followers (45.7k to be exact) before beginning a particular illustration or design? Do you think social media facilitates creative production or hinders it in some way?

Angelica Hicks: I suppose it influences the dimensions, but that’s it – social media can hinder creative production, as one is limited to the constraints of a square and subject to the distracted scrolling viewer. My work is focused on cultural commentary, so it doesn’t influence my subject matter.

CT: Earlier this year, you collaborated with Gucci on the art project #GucciGeeks. How did that partnership come about?

AH: It was very organic – the designs were pre-existing works of mine. Alessandro found me on Instagram and after some time I was proposed with the collaboration.

“Frida Nipple!” and “Man-Drake” by Angelica Hicks, in collaborations with i am OTHER

CT: Your work is obviously very tongue-in-cheek and playfully sardonic. How would you describe your sense of humor?

AH: Good? I hope!

CT: How do you use humor to examine social issues, such as women’s rights, politics, consumerism?

AH: With difficulty because of the danger of misinterpretation and decontextualisation.

CT: So much of your work feels very “word-based.” It’s as if you thought of a line or a pun, and created an image around it. What are your thoughts on this word/image dynamic?

AH: It’s fairly symbiotic, the relationship between word and image. For me word is part of image, and when I come up with the concept I immediately know how it will work visually. I’ve always liked that comic book aesthetic.

“Darth Jacobs” and “Drag and Bone” by Angelica Hicks, in collaborations with i am OTHER

CT: Many celebrities, public figures, and brands are subjects in your work (such as Anna Wintour, Drake, Brad Pitt, Ford, Dolce & Gabbana, etc). What message are you trying to send by using these very public figures to demonstrate a social idea or construct?

AH: A familiar face makes the works familiar for the audience, and I find drawing characters from reality makes the messages more powerful because the viewer is already familiar with an aspect of the illustration; in these cases, the subject.

CT: Can you talk a little bit about your collaboration with i am OTHER? Did you create work exclusively for/with them? What’s the background story on how you came to work with them?

AH: We made a selection of pre-existing works that we felt would be best suited for the Twyla x i am OTHER collaboration. I have never done prints before so it was a very exciting opportunity.

CT: What would you say is the raison d’etre of your work? What are you trying to achieve through each design?

AH: I really like drawing and I really like making people laugh – that’s the simplest way of putting it.

Angelica Hicks

You can find the entire Twyla x i am OTHER collection here.

About the author

Amber was born in Washington, D.C. and relocated to NYC in 2007. She received an M.A. degree in Liberal Studies: Women's Studies, Gender, and Sexuality from CUNY's Graduate Center and University, and an honors B.A. in English from The City College of New York. Before coming to Culture Trip, she was the executive editor for Metropolitan Magazine, a boutique luxury lifestyle and arts publication, as well as the editor for ResidencyNY Magazine. In 2015, she also started her own company, ACS Media Services, and has over 8+ years experience as a writer/editor in the NYC area. As one of the original employees in Culture Trip’s New York City office, Amber focuses on three verticals: Design, Architecture, and Home and Interiors, exploring how creativity and design influences our contemporary social landscape. She lives in Brooklyn with her typewriter.

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