Silke Weißbach’s practice investigates painting as a living system in which natural and synthetic substances coalesce into new forms of material consciousness. Her current research explores the metabolic and emotional intelligence of matter—how biological and biotechnological compounds such as hyaluronic acid, collagen, and plant specimen interact to form responsive terrains.
Her work examines how we reconnect with the living intelligence of the land—an intelligence that circulates through bodies, minerals, and biochemical substances alike. Through processes of crystallisation, absorption, and decay, her material palette generates pictorial surfaces that behave like organisms: fluctuating between tenderness and volatility, body and landscape. Each painting evolves through its own equilibrium, guided by the temperament of its ingredients and a sustained rhythm of observation.
Weißbach’s practice moves toward an embodied ecology that understands transformation as both chemical and affective. It arises from the belief that our connection to nature constitutes a form of knowledge—one we are learning to remember. Each work becomes a meeting point between body and land, where care, attention, and transformation open new relations with the living world. Her ongoing research articulates a visual language of metabolic intimacy, where painting becomes a site for sensing the porous relations between matter, technology, and the living world.
Weissbach grew up in northern Germany near the Baltic Sea. 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 awarded the Paul Smith Foundation Art Prize in 2025. She completed the Imagination Fellowship at Arizona State University in 2025. In recent years, she was shortlisted for the London Bronze Sculpture Fellowship (2023), 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.
Past exhibitions include Landscapes of Time and Memory, Fred Levine Gallery, Bruton, Somerst, UK 2025, Ember, Spinnerei Leipzig, Informality 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 Paul Smith Foundation, London (g) (upcoming) Currents of Kinship, curated by Rickard Borgström and Rebecca Chentinell (DACE), Kulturvillan, Åland, FI (g) Landscapes of Time and Memory, Fred Levine, Bruton, Somerset (g) At Midland Road, Informality Gallery, Bristol (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)
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 2031 AW: FALL INTO THE FUTURE, 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 & Scholarships Pauls Smith / Windsor & Newton International Art Prize, 2025 Eaton Grant, London, 2024 Leonardo ASU Imagination Fellowship, Arizona 2024/2025 Shortlisted for Cob Award, Cob Gallery, London 2024 Shortlisted for the 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