Dabin Ahn has at all times been involved in the way in which objects and supplies turn out to be markers of life. The Chicago-based artist renders delicate vessels, pottery shards, and taper candles with heat wax pooled beneath small flames. Nested in hand-crafted wood frames, his sculptural work are luminous meditations on the passage of time and what stays through the years.
What’s lingering for Ahn for the time being are reminiscences of his father, who died earlier this month. Simply because the artist was wrapping up preparations for his solo present at François Ghebaly, he acquired a name from his brother saying he wanted to return to Seoul to say goodbye. Ahn’s father had been sick for some time, and whereas a lot of the work in Golden Days displays this grief and impending loss, the work are rather more reflective of his father’s demise.
“All through the method of making ready for this present, I used to be largely fascinated about, not my life with out my dad, however taking myself again to the 90s, once we had been most completely satisfied as a household,” the artist advised Colossal. In deep blues and grays, a lot of Ahn’s work is veiled in a kind of meditative melancholy, one which comes via processing grief and loss over a protracted time period. Candles, fireflies, and gleaming vessels seem as beacons among the many somber colour palettes.
Works like “Flora and Fauna II” and “Repose” function vases fading within the background, a transparent metaphor for his late father. The weave of the linen itself additionally peeks via the scratchy floor of the work, which the artist rubbed with sandpaper to attain the grainy, worn texture.
Whereas Ahn is understood to meticulously observe what he’s known as a “script” in creating a chunk, this physique of labor is extra amenable to nature’s forces as burled wooden frames and craggy turquoise assert their textures. Golden Days additionally provides extra space for the supplies’ histories and the patina of assorted objects to shine, a selection echoed within the artist’s personal actions. “I nonetheless really feel my dad’s presence,” he says. “I introduced again his previous watches and his glasses, which I began carrying. I modified the lenses in order that I can put on them, so I’m nonetheless residing with him in a approach.”
Golden Days is on view via February 14 in Los Angeles, and Ahn has one other solo exhibition upcoming this spring at Doc in Chicago. Till then, discover extra on Instagram.
