The title draws inspiration from Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler, who once remarked, “You have to know how to use the accident —how to recognize it, how to control it, and how to eliminate it—so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once.”
Yanko channels beauty through found objects, transforming destroyed and discarded metal into sculptural forms reminiscent of John Chamberlain’s work. Yet, while her mangled scraps of metal might situate her within the realm of sculpture, Yanko considers herself, first and foremost, a painter. Her approach treats surface, color, and form as painterly concerns, even when rendered in three-dimensional space. Yanko’s creative process starts in scrap yards where she hunts for distinct colors amid heaps of junk. Back in her studio, she combines and rearranges metal pieces like elements in a collage, often employing crumpling, bending, welding, and surface treatments. She then pours customized latex paint onto plastic sheets, later peeling, sculpting, and placing the skins around the metal structures before the paint completely solidifies. In Yanko’s hands, painting breaks free from the canvas and into our shared space.

A diligent student of art history, Yanko draws from an unexpected range of influences: the flowing drapery of ancient Greek and Roman statuary, as well as the dynamic metal sculptures created by American artists of the 1940s and ’50s. Through this synthesis, she bridges the classical and the industrial, infusing salvaged material with a renewed sense of vitality and grace.

KENNEDY YANKO (b. 1988 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a sculptor and installation artist working in found metal and paint skin. Her work can be found in notable collections including the Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Stora Wäsby Sculpture Park, Stockholm, Sweden; and the Perez Art Museum, Miami, Florida, among others.