Dabin Ahn Lingers in Loss in a Mournful Series of Sculptural Paintings

Dabin Ahn has always been interested in the way objects and materials become markers of life. The Chicago-based artist renders delicate vessels, pottery shards, and taper candles with warm wax pooled underneath small flames. Nested in hand-crafted wooden frames, his sculptural paintings are luminous meditations on the passage of time and what remains over the years.

What’s lingering for Ahn at the moment are memories of his father, who died earlier this month. Just as the artist was wrapping up preparations for his solo show at François Ghebaly, he received a call from his brother saying he needed to return to Seoul to say goodbye. Ahn’s father had been sick for a while, and while much of the work in Golden Days reflects this grief and impending loss, the paintings are much more reflective of his father’s death.

“Throughout the process of preparing for this show, I was mostly thinking about, not my life without my dad, but taking myself back to the 90s, when we were most happy as a family,” the artist told Colossal. In deep blues and grays, much of Ahn’s work is veiled in a sort of meditative melancholy, one that comes through processing grief and loss over a long period of time. Candles, fireflies, and gleaming vessels appear as beacons among the somber color palettes.

Works like “Flora and Fauna II” and “Repose” feature vases fading in the background, a clear metaphor for his late father. The weave of the linen itself also peeks through the scratchy surface of the paintings, which the artist rubbed with sandpaper to achieve the grainy, worn texture.

While Ahn is known to meticulously follow what he’s referred to as a “script” in creating a piece, this body of work is more amenable to nature’s forces as burled wood frames and craggy turquoise assert their textures. Golden Days also gives more space for the materials’ histories and the patina of various objects to shine, a choice echoed in the artist’s own actions. “I still feel my dad’s presence,” he says. “I brought back his old watches and his glasses, which I started wearing. I changed the lenses so that I can wear them, so I’m still living with him in a way.”

Golden Days is on view through February 14 in Los Angeles, and Ahn has another solo exhibition upcoming this spring at Document in Chicago. Until then, find more on Instagram.

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