Los Angeles-based artist honors Kobe and Gigi Bryant with a statue.
TWO years after the tragic life-ending accident, the late Kobe Bryant and daughter Gigi Bryant were honored with a bronze statue at the crash site in Calabasas, California.
In a one-day memorial, Los Angeles-based artist Dan Medina placed a bronze statue of the father and daughter on a steep hill at the Calabasas hillside crash site. Medina said the statue, which shows the elder Bryant with his hand on Gianna's shoulder as she carries a basketball, will remain at the hilltop site temporarily.
Medina added that he has sculpted a version that is 7-feet tall, and he would like to get the talks moving forward on how to place it in downtown Los Angeles.
“You come up here and it is kind of emotional,” Medina told the Los Angeles Times. “The flowers, the jerseys, the hats blow away, and I think we need something more permanent.”
The 150-pound sculpture illustrated Bryant in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform with his arm around Gianna’s shoulder. Gianna held a basketball tucked beneath her arm while gazing up at her father. She’s also depicted in basketball gear, symbolizing the love of the sport they shared.
The statue is engraved with the quote “Heroes come and go but legends are forever” inscribed on the platform below along with the names of the nine victims who lost their lives in the January 26, 2020 crash.
The names of the seven others whose lives were also claimed on that day: John Altobelli, his wife, Keri; and their daughter, Alyssa; Christina Mauser; Sarah Chester and her daughter, Payton; and the pilot, Ara Zobayan.
It was in 2020 when Bryant and his daughter Gigi, and the six other passengers were flying from Orange County to a youth basketball tournament at his Mamba Sports Academy in Ventura County. The helicopter encountered thick fog in the San Fernando Valley and slammed into a hillside.
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