Vestal: A Conversation With Libby Schoettle
David Garguilo from Vestal caught up with Libby Schoettle as they discussed the inspiration behind PhoebeNewYork, the creative process, and her latest docuseries "Bemused".
Read more here.
PhoebeNewYork Featured on UP Magazine
This is what 16-year-old Holden Caufield has to say about his 10-year-old sister, Phoebe, in chapter ten of J.D. Salinger’s classic The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger’s Phoebe is a character so steeped in duality that scholars still wonder about her today, seventy years after the novel’s publication. She is at once an innocent little child who wears elephant pajamas and sleeps with her mouth open, and a thoughtful, wise counselor to her older brother, Holden, Salinger’s persistently confused and angst-ridden adolescent protagonist.
Which brings us to PhoebeNewYork, a modern-day study in similar contrasts. Her balloon-like head is that of a cartoon sprite, innocent yet oddly alluring, a little bit like Betty Boop. Her body is fashion-week perfect, a grown-up woman in hose and heels. And the street-corner counsel she dispenses is sagacious in its simplicity. She’s a lot like Salinger’s Phoebe.
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Phoebe—A Street Art Star in New York—Has Landed a Museum Show in Denmark
Phoebe's exhibition at the Horsens Art Museum gets featured in Vouge:
“Danes missing New York, take note: A slice of the Big Apple is coming to Copenhagen. It will be served up in the form of a monographic exhibition, “My Paper World,” featuring the work of Elizabeth “Libby” Schoettle—better known as Phoebe New York—at Horsens Art Museum. Opening on the heels of Copenhagen Fashion Week, the show runs from August 21, 2021, through January 30, 2022"
Read more in Vogue, "Phoebe—A Street Art Star in New York—Has Landed a Museum Show in Denmark".
PhoebeNewYork Artist Elizabeth Schoettle Talks Her New European Exhibit
This local’s art career continues to blossom as her infamous PhoebeNewYork pop-art pieces make their way to a Denmark museum.
Many are familiar with Bryn Mawr native and artist Elizabeth Schoettle’s (libbyschoettle.com) alter ego, PhoebeNewYork: a round-faced, paper doll-like character pasted on canvases like buildings and street lamps throughout the Big Apple. Conceptualized in the early 2000s, the sassy character is familiar for those who spend time in downtown Manhattan, and is often made from pieces of magazines, vintage photographs and clothing—among other materials. “Phoebe is everything I am and all the things I cannot be,” Schoettle says, noting that the alter ego has helped her to overcome insecurities and comfortably express herself. In turn, the icon embodies Schoettle’s love for New York City and fashion as she dons couture with graphic phrases like “Rebel,” “Fear Nothing” and “Be Confident.”
Now, Phoebe has gone international with an exhibit titled MY PAPER WORLD: PhoebeNewYork, at the Horsens Kunstmuseum (horsenskunstmuseum.dk) in Denmark. Over 600 works of Phoebe art arrived at the museum in February 2020 and are on display through February 20, 2022.
While the exhibit follows PhoebeNewYork’s evolution, it also documents Schoettle’s career progression. She may be a Main Liner, but New York City is where Phoebe was born. “Finding New York was like falling in love,” she explains. “This city gives me life to create art.” As Phoebe personified in ripped magazine pages and photographs, Schoettle transitioned from introvert to artist, learning to value the wrinkles and tears in her life. “Art isn’t perfect, and it helps me to see imperfections in myself as beautiful,” she notes.
Seventeen years into her career, the Horsens exhibit is a surreal experience for Schoettle. “I think my whole life has been made up of looking for a certain feeling and purpose, and I know I have found it,” she says. With Schoettle’s passion for her paper doll, there’s no knowing where Phoebe will go next, but we can be certain of one thing: It’s Phoebe’s paper world, and we’re just living in it.
Originally featured on Philly Style Magazine.
Photography by: Jacob Friss Holm Nielsen/Courtesy of Horsens Kunstmuseum and the Artist
Libby Schoettle Featured on BlackBook
From Betty Boop to Blair Waldorf, New York City has inspired an ever-evolving history of fictional “It” Girls. Although the latest fille to make the list hasn’t been defying social distancing guidelines in covert downtown speakeasies or igniting Page Six scandals; she has been—much to our delight—regularly spotted around town.
Meet PhoebeNewYork, the charming and très fashionable alter ego of NYC-based artist Libby Schoettle. Phoebe has been popping up on boarded up storefronts and bus shelters throughout New York and across the globe, and stirring up quite a buzz. More than just a street-art phenomenon, she’s amassed over thirty-two thousand Instagram followers, collaborated with brands like Victoria Beckham Beauty, lululemon, and Rag & Bone, and will be the subject of a Canobie Films docuseries next year.
Read the full post here!
Libby Schoettle Interview with Street Art NYC
Speaking With NYC-Based Artist Libby Schoettle on Her Endearing Alter Ego, “PhoebeNewYork”
I fell in love with PhoebeNewYork the moment I saw her on the streets of my city, and I’ve since become obsessed with her! I love everything about her – from her trendy, doll-like figure and her gorgeous outfits to her empowering messages. Recently, I had the honor to speak to her creator, Libby Schoettle.
Can you tell us a bit about your background? Where were you born? Where did you grow up?
I was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and raised on a nearby farm. My father was working as an English teacher at the Church Farm School, a boys’ boarding school. And so that’s where I grew up. I was always surrounded by nature. It was amazing… and totally the opposite of New York City!
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When Victoria Beckham Met Phoebe
PhoebeNewYork creates eight collages for the launch of Victoria Beckham's Beauty Products
“‘Something good is worth finding’ is one of Phoebe’s messages and, for me, that something is Phoebe,” says Libby Schoettle, New York City-based street artist and creator of PhoebeNewYork. Phoebe provides a quirky, artistic, and modern take on feminism and female empowerment including love and work. For VB, these shared values are exactly what drew her towards Phoebe in the first place. “Victoria makes magic and I think Phoebe makes magic, too.” And together, #VBandPhoebe marked this week’s launch of the Bitten Lip Tint and Lip Definer with eight collages sprinkled throughout the city.
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PhoebeNewYork selected as one of the Top 5 Rising Street Artists by Skate Art
Schoettle’s alter ego “phoebenewyork” is a round-faced woman with a black bob. She has popped up in cities including New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Sydney, and Barcelona in the form of prints wheatpasted to telephone polls and walls. Her original collages—which together recount a story, of Phoebe falling in love, wandering around town, and experiencing heartbreak—are created with found objects, including magazine pages, old books, record sleeves, and vintage photographs. Prints on her site sell for between $100–250. She has an Instagram following of more than 20,000.
See the full list here!
Phoebe New York Is Somebody
PhoebeNewYork shares her inspiration, process, and outlook on the New York street art scene in an interview with Jejune Magazine.
How did you get into street art?
"No artist can predict how their art will be received, and it certainly never crossed my mind that my art would be seen by people walking past it on their city walks, finding it on poles, doors and walls. My start in street art was very unexpected. I didn’t know anything about street art or graffiti until I began this journey, a journey that has happily changed my entire direction as a woman and as an artist. And yet you can’t question what feels right; from the first time I put Phoebe on the street, I never looked back."
You have a very cool style. Can you tell us a bit about what attracts you to collages and why you choose what you include in them?
Thank you! I am attracted to anything that I am attracted to, if that makes sense! Once, I found an old refrigerator door on the side of the road and dragged it into my seven-story walk up apartment because I was sure I could make something with it, and I did! I always trust my instincts in terms of what I use for my art, what I include in my art, and even what I photograph. I am attracted to things that remind me of the past, things that feel timeless. Quite often my collages contain elements from several different time periods, and I feel it is that combination of “time” that makes my work come alive. A skirt from 1950 and a top from 1980 and hair from 1920 can become the future.
Read the entire interview with Jejune Magazine here!
