Kennedy Yanko is a St Louis born, Brooklyn based sculptor, painter, and installation artist. Yanko works primarily with found objects and paint skins. To create her paint skin sculptures, gallons of paint are poured onto a surface and left to partially dry, forming a tarp-like surface. The surface is lifted and shaped, and subsequently fitted into metal armatures which Yanko welds and bends into precise shapes. Yanko uses full body motion and manipulation to mold these large sheets of paint into vast folds that appear natural, almost organic. Despite their actual weight, size, and strength it takes to shape them, the sculptures take on a floating, weightless quality, and appear on the verge of life, as if it may take its first breath at any moment. Although her creations are labeled as sculptures, Yanko sees herself as a painter, the metal and skins becoming paint strokes in her hands. Yanko is a longtime follower of Daoism, and uses those principles to guide her art. In simple terms, Daoism focuses on harmony between all living things, and understanding the flow of energy in the world, ultimately deferring to the power of nature over humanity. Daoists look beyond man-made boundaries and designations. Yanko’s transmutation of her materials, using unnatural objects such as her found metal and creating natural feeling pieces, is guided by those principles.
Yanko has been included in significant exhibitions at the Albertina Modern (2024); Brooklyn Museum (2022; 2024); CFHill (2022); Parrish Art Museum (2022); Rubell Museum (2021), where she was the 2021-2022 Artist in Residence and first sculptor to hold the residency; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2019). Yanko’s work is held in major private and institutional collections such as Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach, FL; Espacio Tacuari, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Firestorm Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden; Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; Rubell Museum, Miami, FL; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Ståhl Collection, Norrköping, Sweden; and Stora Väsby Sculpture Park, Upplands Väsby, Sweden.