Silke Weißbach’s (1984, Germany) process driven practice is rooted at the intersection of material alchemy, emotional resonance, and ecological awareness. Her paintings, sculptures, and video installations operate as living systems—environments where biological agents and intangible elements such as light, colour, fragrance, liquids, language, and memory are combined and shaped through slow transformation, and where time and matter co-author the work. Central to her research is an exploration of the ontological and epistemological dimensions of materiality—emphasising interspecies relationships and the agency of materials, within a territory shaped by care, embodied power relations, and shared vulnerability
Substances such as spirulina, hyaluronic acid, sugar, formula milk, seaweed and wax act as active agents, initiating processes of crystallisation, fermentation, decomposition, and evaporation. Chosen for their metaphorical resonance and transformative capacities, these materials think, shift, and destabilize. Her surfaces are biologically alive—responsive, vulnerable, and metabolically charged. The process unfolds fluidly, through a rhythm of layering and removal: puddles accumulate, cracks emerge, wax is melted away, and new material is introduced, generating a surface that remains in dynamic evolution.
Weißbach embraces abstraction as a space of resistance, where meaning remains fluid and luminous. She relinquishes authorial control in favour of collaboration with material forces, allowing forms to emerge through care, observation, and chemical time. Her works are not composed but cultivated—ecosystems in flux, shaped by entropy and ecological intelligence.
Her practice transcends the binaries of expressionism and minimalism, replacing gesture with process, image with experience. Time is not narrated but embedded—visible in ruptures, stains, accumulations, and decay. Through this approach, Weißbach constructs a poetics of becoming, where interspecies vulnerability, material agency, and embodied transformation define the visual language.
Weissbach grew up in northern Germany near the Baltic Ocean. She studied Illustration and Graphic Design at the University of Applied Arts and Sculpture at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg before completing her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (2020), where she now lives and works. She was shortlisted for the London Bronze Sculpture Fellowship (2023), and the Cob Award (2024) for an interdisciplinary project on collective intelligence, bioacoustics, and ecological consciousness, as well as the Somerset House digital residency program (2023). Her Correspondence (Sugar) series, initiated in 2020, was added to the Jan van Eyck Future Materials Bank in 2022. In 2024, she participated in residencies at Xenia in North Hampshire and Porthmeor Studios in Cornwall and is currently a Fellow at Arizona State University.
Recent exhibitions include Ember, Spinnerei Leipzig, Fred Levine Gallery (2024), Kooperation, Nizza Gallery, Berlin (2024), Taking the Light out of the Prism at Duplex Gallery, Lisbon Art Weekend (2023), Pass Your Tongue Over at Kanister, Hamburg (2023), and BYOB at Bomb Factory, London (2022), Homegrown, Hauser & Wirth London (2020) and 50/50, Fold Gallery (2020).
CV
Studies 2018 – 2020 Royal College of Art: Painting (MA), London 2016 – 2018 University of Fine Arts Hamburg: Sculpture (BA), Hamburg 2013 - 2016 University of Fine Arts, Illustration (BA), Hamburg 2014 Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK), Copenhagen (DEN) (studies abroad)
Exhibitions
2025 Siren Emissaries, Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, Mesa, Arizona (g) upcoming Fred Levine Opening, Bruton, Somerset (g), upcoming At Midland Road, Informality Gallery, online (g)
2024 Invited: Ember, Informality Gallery, Spinnerei Leipzig (g) Cooperation, Nizza, Berlin (g) Lavender, Hibernation and Neon, curated by Yueh-Ning Lee, Crypt Gallery, London (g) TLC, Greatorex Street Gallery, London (g)
2023 Taking The Light Out Of The Prism, Duplex Gallery, Lisbon Art Weekend, Lisbon (g) Physicaldigitalphysicaldigital, Uncloud, Utrecht (g) Can you hear the Wood whisper, Amsterdam (g) Pass Your Tongue Over, Kanister/Benzene, Hamburg (s)
2022 BYOB, LUX and Bomb Factory, London (g) Working on a Dream, ATP Gallery, London (g) Orlando, Ermita de San Pedro, GrottaAir, Spain (s) RCA Graduates 2020, Bargehouse Gallery, London (g) ESC — EXHIBITION / #2031 AW, VVOOVVA Gallery, online (g)
2021 Rundgang.IO (online), view here RCA Lost and damaged, Somerset house – AVMTV (online), view here
2020 Materias Incertas, Cultural Institute of Lagos, Portugal (g) Mushrooms in the Dark, private members club, London (g) Ghosts That Live Amongst Us, 155a_gallery in East Dulwich, London (g) 50/50 Fold Gallery, London (g) Stutter, BAKIIBAK, Hastings (g) Collaborative Lecture Performance, Salzburg Summer Academy (g) RCA2020 (online), Royal College of Art, London (g) Homegrown, Hauser and Wirth, London (g) A fish you have already caught, London Atmosphere, London (g) Snapshot, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (g)
2019 Plastic Tongue, White House, London (g) Brexhibition, Courtyard Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (g) Work in Progress Show, Royal College of Art, London (g)
2018 Me, Myself and the Possibility of You, Westwerk, Hamburg (g)
2017 It never meant nothing more than it means right now, Gallery Altes Zollamt, Hamburg (g) Benzene, Gallery Rentzelstraße, Hamburg (g) Kunst macht Ärger, Bunkerhill Gallery, Hamburg (g) Beat about the Bush, Gallery K70, Lübeck (s) Elephant and Castle, 2025 Gallery, Hamburg (g) Höhlen von Elephanta, Raum Linksrechts Gallery, Hamburg (g)
2016 Kunst in der Börse, Handelskammer Hamburg, Hamburg (g) add art at BDO, Gallery BDO, Hamburg (d) Overall OAM, Westwerk, Hamburg (g) D/UMBO, U.FO Gallery, Hamburg (d)
Awards, Grants & Scholarship Eaton Grant, London, 2024 Leonardo ASU Imagination Fellowship, Arizona 2024/2025 Shortlisted for Cob Award, Cob Gallery London 2024 Shortlisted for London Bronze Fellowship, London 2023 Shortlisted Somersethouse Creative Fellowship, London 2023 Karl H. Ditze Grant for the Best Project, HAW Hamburg 2014 Erasmus program, scholarship for Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, HAW Hamburg 2014
Publications [ˌkoʔopeʁaˈt͡si̯oːn]–Cooperation, Nizza Gallery, 2024 Ember, Informality Gallery, 2024 RCA2020, Transmissions, 2022 Ghosts That Live Amongst Us, Ed. by Warbling Collective, 2020 50/50, Ed. by Fold Gallery, 2020 Ladies Drawing Club, ISSUE#3, 2020 Höhlen von Elephanta, exhibition catalogue, Ed. by Gallery Raum linksrechts, 2017 Kunst in der Börse, exhibition catalogue, Ed. by Handelskammer Hamburg, 2016 Add Art, exhibition catalogue, Ed. by BDO, 2016 Reportagen, Artist Book, Ed. by UFU Institut Berlin, 2015 Im Rettungsboot der Titanic, Artist Book, Ed. by HAW Hamburg, 2014 Soulmates, Woodcut, Artist Book, Ed. by HAW Hamburg, 2013
Collections Future Material Archive, Jan van Eyck Academy, 2022
Residencies Porthmeor Studio Residency, St. Ives, Cornwall, UK, 2025 Xenia Retreat, UK, 2024 Uncloud, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2023 Duplex Air, Lisbon 2022 Grotta Air, Aracana – Spain, 2022 Salzburg Summer Academy (online). 2020 Casa Tagumerche, La Gomera (Canary Island), 2019 Summer School, Royal College of Art, London, 2017 International Drawing Meeting ArtEZwolle, Ransdaal, Netherlands, 2014