Based on realistic representation Jannine Koch’s work finds expression in the fields of painting and printmaking (the latter with emphasis on technically elaborate monochrome and colour etchings). By employing montage she connects structures from nature and technology as well as using maps and plans of different origin all of which aim at indicating environmental threat through technological progress as much as digital propaganda and surveillance strategies. Jannine Koch gains first recognition through her printmaking series named “Kerbtiere” in which she designs surreal insects as hermaphrodites between organic structures and technoid constructions. Depicted from above as well as symmetrically and centrally organised they evoke the impression of a Natural History Museums’s collection. More recent etchings and material monoprints are dedicated to classical music, its composers, performance venues and notation.The medium and large-format oil paintings, however, are often inspired by media images of war scenarios and satellite surveillance with pixel screening and numeric codes which reflect the permanent digital noise of incessantly incoming information. Chaos and continuous mutation are evoked by the cloudy impression of spray paint as well as the flowing of colour over concrete elements in the picture. In contrast to the latter, the paintings in egg tempera that have been created since 2025/26 employ elements of vegetation, ornaments, architecture and medical images all of which are intertwined. Through that surreal interaction the artist conjures up the idea of a dystopian organism characterized by deformation, mutation and an irreversible collapse of a world that used to be familiar to us.

Thomas Hirsch

in: Artists of the World, aow.degruyter.com, spring 2026