Silke Weißbach (1984, Germany) is a visual artist whose process-driven practice weaves together material alchemy, emotional resonance, and ecological consciousness. Working across painting, sculpture, and video installation, she creates environments that function as living systems—where organic substances, light, colour, scent, and memory interact over time. Her works evolve slowly, shaped by natural processes such as crystallisation, fermentation, decomposition, and evaporation.
Processing biologically active substances such as spirulina, hyaluronic acid, plant mtter, sugar, formula milk, seaweed, and wax, her work shifts state, accumulate residues, and registers time. Her material palette initiate slow, unpredictable transformations: puddles gather, wax recedes, surfaces crack or bloom. Her compositions remain porous and metabolically active—sensitive to air, light, and humidity.
At the core of Weißbach’s practice is a sustained engagement with care as a material and ecological methodology. This approach is grounded in close observation, responsiveness to environmental change, and a deliberate embrace of fragility and indeterminacy. Her process allows time transformation and natural agents to become active agents in the work, foregrounding collaboration with natural systems. This relational perspective invites a rethinking of artistic autonomy, foregrounding interdependence and an ethical imperative for living complexities of the environment.
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 awarded for the Paul Smith Foundation Art Prize in 2025 and completed the Imagination Fellowship at Arizona State University in 2025, in recent years 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.
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, Sweden, (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) 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 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 & Scholarship Royal College of Art President and Vice-Chancellor’s International Scholarship, 2025
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 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