Ahn Dabin, the late screen icon Ahn Sung-ki’s eldest son, shared a moving tribute to his father while announcing a long-planned solo exhibition opening in Los Angeles this week.
Posting to Instagram on the 12th, the painter and installation artist wrote that the show―something he’d been preparing since last year―now carries a profound new weight after his father’s passing. He recalled being in his Chicago studio, working on his 11th piece, when a call came from his brother in Korea―an instant he now remembers as the beginning of the hardest hours of his life.
“Dad waited for me,” he wrote, adding that even without a response, he felt his father was listening as he spoke. “The father who cried when he first saw me enter this world stayed with me through my birthday on January 4―and the next morning, January 5, he passed.”
Amid a nationwide outpouring of grief and a final farewell from the film community, Ahn said the family found comfort in memories: “There were so many good moments. We cried a lot during the funeral―but we laughed a lot, too.”
Active in the U.S. art scene, Ahn said he plans to channel those memories into new work. “I want to preserve the warmth Dad left behind. I’m grateful I’m a painter,” he wrote. “For a while, I think my work will hold the ways I miss him.”
Ahn Sung-ki was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2019 and declared in remission the following year, but the disease returned. On December 30, he collapsed at home after choking on food and was rushed to the hospital. He was treated in the ICU but never regained consciousness and died six days later.
The actor’s five-day funeral, held with honors from the Korean film industry, drew leading figures from film, politics, and business, while fans paid respects at a memorial space at the Seoul Film Center.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kim Ji-hye)
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