Johanna Rotko

Johanna Rotko is a visual artist whose work bridges photography and bioart through collaboration with beneficial microbes such as yeasts, kōji mould, and oncom mould. She creates images using an experimental technique that combines: beneficial microbes, edible dyes, growth media, raster images, and UV light. Rotko’s work delves into themes of power dynamics, transience, material transformation, and the impermanence of matter and time.

She first encountered this technique in 2013 during a workshop hosted by the artist collective Pavillon_35 and Bioart Society. Since then, beneficial microbes have become active collaborators in her creative process. Her photographic works, which feature microbial and yeast species alongside other creatures, emphasise our environment’s diversity, complexity, and uncontrolled nature.

 

Image: Side Profile Woman Oncomgram, 2023.