Wildflowers

Wildflowers

2024 solo presentation at Frieze London with James Cohan Gallery

“For Frieze London 2024, James Cohan is pleased to present a selection of new works by Kennedy Yanko…For this presentation, the artist is reducing her scale, creating her own version of miniatures. These diminutive, freestanding sculptures force the viewer to perceive the work aerially, joining the perspective the artist takes while in the act of painting. From this suspended vantage point, the viewer is pushed to zoom out from the often-immersive experience of Yanko's larger scale works and consider the intimately alluring tangibility and materiality of these objects unto themselves. Simultaneously, the smaller scale conveys a preciousness to the work that's quickly subverted by the chrome metal implemented throughout this body of work.”

— Excerpt from Frieze London presentation press release. Read more about the show here.

In Kennedy’s words:

For my solo presentation Wildflowers at Frieze London, the works mark a return to the intimacy of painting within my studio practice. I had missed the brush—the immediacy of gesture and the physicality of paint—and these pieces offered an opportunity to re-engage with movement as a formative element in my process. Using chrome as a base, I developed the paint skins through water pours, transfers, and a backward-to-front technique, painting blindly before lifting the skin, to produce layers of unpredictable personality and texture. The piece reflects both a rediscovery and a renewal of painting as it exists within the language of sculpture.