Now You See Me

Scout Zabinski

Apr 22

April 22 – May 22, 2022

In the bleak mid winter
Endless snow fall, falling in the village
Doughy bread wafting out from the first open oven
Mingling with a sour stench
Memories of last night’s bender
A child chases weary parents
While they pursue another, now long gone

Watching it all from her tower
A decent girl resigned to a glass castle
The spectacle for the spectators

The pastries in the display case, less sweet next to her
An easy exchange
Last crumbs always smiling too soon

Still she sits
Far too careful
Not to disturb the lock on her door
“It must be quite lonely up there”
Invisibly visible

An unremarkable bitter dawn
A banner unfurls from the tower
With a league of letters
It all comes tumbling down
“Now You See Me”

This is a coming-of-age story and a story of several selves. Indexical, ID-based, and autobiographic. She exists in threes and goes by She/Her. Not because they are her pronouns, but rather because that's what I've decided. That's what I call her. Which is okay right? After all “She” is no she at all, She is nothing but suspended pigmented particles, acrylic polymer emulsion, and water. She is–her purpose being–to be made, cherished, shown, and sold. She in some ways functions as an insert or avatar for experiences, dreams, and memories and the iterative spiralings to be drawn from the unsaid.

Each work retains secret stories and performative acts of intimacy – and She is to blame. Now you see me is just another prism, an artificial looking glass, a doubling/dubbing process between image and image-maker. An indexical mark in plastic, about plasticity, the malleable and impenetrable. Plasticities of personal experience and memory– a willful self-examination. Succeeding portraits that probe all the insecurities and excess-the love handles of my adolescence.

These paintings are of but not materially “me” so excuse me if I offend you. She is only a part of this whole. My body is a living canvas–its iterations hanging on the wall are mere products of a neverending process. A succession of undoing and redoing–reducing myself down to the physical appearance to make it ~simpler~ more digestible… how ironic. Isn't it ironic how ironic being honest can be… She is my subject and commodified accessory existing exclusively outside of myself, with the sole purpose of being owned, admired, and adorned by others. My body as object and my body as subject, together, bring to “life” these lived experiences, personalities, or sides to oneself-ego, alter ego, and superego. She is an amalgamation of how you see me.

Seeing myself, how I look at Her and the discrepancy between what others see, I’ve begun to recognize the good and the bad, the charming and the ill, the successful and the sub-mediocre.

Pictures of you
Pictures of me
All upon your wall for the world to see
Pictures of you
Pictures of me
Remind us all of what we used to be
– The Cure

What lies in what is unsaid, what you cannot view with the naked eye, is infinite.