Kennedy Yanko creates objects to prompt transformation in each of us. Ask her about metal, which she employs at large scale, often requiring heavy machinery to transport, and she’ll point away from its industrial connotations towards something more elemental and philosophical. Her works invite the viewer to consider how objects and consciousness are fused. They evoke art-historical references and influences – the sculptors Richard Hunt, John Chamberlain, Ann Hamilton, for example – as well as the Qigong, moving meditation, the principle of using intention to lead the chi.
The bond between matter and heaven (2025), a monumental work of compressed and painted metal, anchors Yanko’s three-sculpture presentation in the Biennale Arte 2026. She began by crushing a shipping container to reduce it into an anamorphic state. Yanko paints onto metal using brushes, brooms, rags and water. She then adds lengths of “paint skin”, produced from surfaces of dried acrylic paint – akin to the sheets used by Jack Whitten, another important influence. The result is a visual paradox – a hard material feels soft; an impossible weight suspends in mid-flight.
—Sarah Elizabeth Lewis
