Only 18, Hannah Kennedy Yanko is a biracial artist on the move
By Malena Amusa
For the St. Louis American
Hannah Kennedy Yanko is only 18-years-old, but she has already sold more than $6,000 worth of her original paintings that she said conveys an appreciation for pretty things.
“I just like pretty colors,” Yanko said. “If it evokes some kind of emotion, then I’ve done my job.”
This month, Yanko opened an exhibit of her latest work that will run until the last day of January at the Washington Ave. Post, a downtown café located at 1312 Washington Ave.
During its reception Jan. 5, Yanko’s diverse friends and family piled in the café to support the budding artist and, in the process, created a collage of color that reflected the vibrant and contrasting splotches, swabs and strokes of paint that make up Yanko’s style.
“I don’t know why I do the things I do,” said Yanko, who is also a professional photographer.
With simple titles such as “Pink and Grey” and “Bright Teal and Yellow,” her large canvases force viewers to derive their own meaning from her work as her strokes seek to enliven rather than inform.
Since she began painting at the age of four, Yanko has always wanted to express the fullness of colors. In a college-admissions essay, Yanko described the inspiration behind her art: “The world around me affects my art. The more I experience cities, people, food, language, the broader my strokes become. What inspires me is exploration. An unfamiliar surrounding can renew and awaken the senses.”
Yanko is finishing her senior year at Clayton High School. After she graduates, she plans to develop her passion at an art institute in San Francisco.
On a recent Sunday, Yanko sat down at a café in the Loop to talk about being a biracial kid on the move.
“Give us 20 years, and we’ll be taking over,” she said jokingly. “The mixed kids.”
As a child of an African-American mother and white father, Yanko sees the world through a double lens. This has showed her the “best and the worst of both sides,” she said. Everywhere she goes, her mixed background shapes her life.
“What pisses me off is when people think black and ghetto is the same,” she said.
And people are constantly asking her where she’s from. She hopes, she said, they think she’s from Brazil.
Yanko currently is completing a collection she’s dedicating to Brazil, where she recently traveled and again became inspired.
“Brazilian people capture the goodness of life,” she said. “Many don’t have a lot of things. But the poorest people have the biggest smiles on their faces. Brazil teaches me to live life to its fullest.”
This April, Yanko will exhibit her Brazil collection in Miami at a posh club owned by fashion designer and art patron Gerry Kelly. She owes her success to basic business planning.
“My best investment was building my website and getting business cards,” she said.
Early on, Yanko’s parents made the decision to invest in her dreams, which led them to set up a studio for Yanko to paint at the age of 13.
Yanko’s mother, who joked about being her daughter’s ATM, said she believes the paintings foster an opportunity to witness beauty.
“Art is the expression of beauty,” said Shelley Kennedy Yanko. “What’s life without beauty? It’s drudgery. It’s time, schedules and errands. Art transcends the spirit and gives hope.”
