Janine Thüngen-Reichenbach

Janine Thüngen-Reichenbach’s work unfolds at the intersection of sculpture and the imprint and memory of matter. For over twenty years, the artist has been exploring sensory forms of the relationship between human beings, nature and space by examining the way in which time acts on bodies.

Drawing inspiration from the proto-Christians catacombs located just beneath her house in Rome, she has developed a technique all her own, consisting of taking silicon impressions of ancient walls. Once recreated in bronze, these imprints transpose the memory of a subterranean history, encouraging reflection on the concept of eternity.

Extending this line of research, the artist has worked on her longstanding, deep-seated ties with trees. For the Treeworld series (since 2024), they have become living archives: like ancient walls, their bark preserves the marks of time. Their organic texture is captured by the silicon impression technique, enabling beholders to discover them from a new angle, as if they had accessed their other side.

Works based on trees growing along the ancient Via Appia, where the artist lives, will be unveiled at Chaumont-sur-Loire, beside a monumental sphere obtained by an impression of the bark of the giant sequoia in the Domain’s Historic Grounds. The latter embodies loss and continuity alike. The silicon’s texture preserves the memory of the old tree while the bronze part suggests eternity. Hence, the work creates a dialogue between the perishable and the durable, an invitation to meditation on the transition from mortality to immortality, matter to spirit.

Janine Thüngen-Reichenbach was born in Germany and has lived and worked in Antwerp, New York, Moscow and Paris. After working in the world of fashion design in Milan and Paris, including alongside Karl Lagerfeld, she spent more than ten years as a set and costume designer for great opera houses across Europe, before devoting herself exclusively to her art.

Janine Thüngen-Reichenbach’s sculptures are created out of a variety of materials, from the most traditional — bronze, clay and glass — to more unexpected mediums such as rubber, hemp; water, sound and even plants. And, more recently, silicon. The artist produces works in a range of formats, from small-format sculpture to monumental creation. She has also created numerous sound and land art installations.

In 2025, she took part in the inaugural edition of the Universe Pavilion, an event held in parallel with the Venice Biennale of Architecture. The artist lives and works between Rome and Venice.