Tonight’s exhibition opening comes at the tail end of two decades spent taking in a slew of rapidly-changing surroundings, boasting the undertakings of an artistic eye incubated amidst what’s probably one of the more interesting come-ups among America's 24 year-olds. It’s very difficult to distinguish between the four at any given point. He’s in a constant rotation of taking the shades, hoodie and Paradise cap off and putting them back on again, and he speaks in quiet, distant sentences that feel in equal part genius, stream-of-consciousness, press-shy, and vaguely disinterested. He’s ecstatic when a Chick-fil-A delivery man toting two large white plastic bags wanders with searching eyes into the corridor, and for the rest of our interview, he’s apologetically poring over a bowl of macaroni & cheese, accompanied by what I think is a large Sprite. He hasn’t had breakfast yet, and his mom, who elicits a charming Forrest-Gump wave from him when she walks by us in the lobby, had to remind him of his physical therapy appointment.
“.From getting hit by a car.” A couple of weeks ago, he was out skating in a parking lot in an Atlanta suburb, when a vehicle came out of nowhere and struck him, badly damaging his leg. “I have a broken tibia bone, and I got some ligament damage…” he explains. By the time we take adjacent seats in an expansive couch at the room's center, the receptionist doesn’t seem so suspicious anymore. Kinky blonde and black streaks poke out from the many agents anonymizing his face, and as much as it’s obvious to everyone in the room that he’s a star of some sort - though they don’t know for what - he slips into the space like any of the several sociable tourists who filtered in and out of the foyer while I waited, exchanging pleasantries with baristas, and telling seemingly every passerby possible to have a good afternoon. He’s wearing a light purple Supreme hoodie over a black Monster Energy baseball cap (the word “Monster” is replaced by “Paradise,” his fashion brand), brown-tinted shades, long gray sweatpants, tall white gym socks, and a pair of dress shoes that manage to work surprisingly well with his otherwise-cozy attire.
Lanky and aloof, he has the endearingly-awkward air of Joey Ramone, or at least a version of him that grew up in the Instagram era, looked up to XXXTENTACION instead of Iggy Pop, perhaps got his scars from failed tricks, rather than the fists of his bandmates. Coming up on ten years after his first taste of such visionary autonomy, he runs a berserk all-out fashion brand, makes sparingly-released sad boy guitar music flanked by obsessive fans on SoundCloud, skates with just as much artfulness as he does hardcore flair, and, as of this evening, is looking to lug his legend up from the streets, and into the gallery.Īt around half past noon, the grand lobby doors are held ajar by an assistant, and limping his way through them on crutches is Sean, who hesitantly gestures towards me and begins uttering semi-whispered, too-cool-to-be-true apologies for being late. Homeschooling - in major part because his dad made it a point to surround him with art and art books - fostered an already-existent penchant for creativity that prior public school experiences did little to nourish. By the time he was 16 years old, he was sponsored by Supreme, Converse and the skater-owned conglomerate Fucking Awesome, after which, still with homework, tests, and a growing newfangled public image to be contended with, he was plucked out of the California State education system by his father to be homeschooled. Waiting isn't one of the first things that come to mind when you think of Sean Pablo. Right as I finish typing out the paragraph you just read in my notes app, the receptionist's glaring side-eye still hot on my face, I get two texts: (1) "Hey there," and (2) "Im at physical therapy." He tells me that he's really sorry, and that he'll be back in 45 minutes.