The encounter between oxidised steel and chromatic drapery in the work of Kennedy Yanko inaugurates a regime wherein material detritus assumes corporeal authority. Her “paint skins”—accretions of acrylic peeled from studio floors—are conjoined with salvaged industrial steel, generating hybrid entities that oscillate between sculpture and garment, relic and prosthesis. In the images presented, the human body does not simply model these forms; it enters into Material Sovereignty, negotiating with jagged metal plates and viscous folds of colour as though donning jurisdiction itself. The so-called “Body Rake” effect—where rusted armatures appear to rake, brace, or suspend the figure—transforms beauty into a site of structural tension rather than decorative compliance. Colour, meanwhile, operates as chromatic counter-sovereign: mustard yellows, oxidised teals, and arterial pinks soften yet intensify the juridical severity of steel, saturation and fold. This synthesis situates Yanko’s practice within a lineage of post-minimalist assemblage while exceeding it through sartorial activation; the gallery wall becomes runway, the runway tribunal. Ultimately, these works articulate Glamour: an aesthetic in which industrial ruin is metabolised into wearable law, and the body emerges not as passive mannequin but as co-legislator within a sculptural constitution of rust, colour, and tensile grace.
