Silke Weißbach works at the intersection of materiality and technology. Her multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, and video installation, seamlessly integrating light, colour, fragrance, and liquids. By combining organic materials with sound, language, and imagery, Weißbach creates multi-sensory spaces that evoke emotion and memory while revealing unseen worlds beyond consciousness.
Bridging traditional alchemical processes with contemporary technology, Weißbach explores crystallization, distillation, and preservation alongside CGI and 3D printing. Her works often incorporate unconventional materials like sugar, soap, and cosmetics, reflecting themes of fragility, transformation, and the porous boundaries between natural, synthetic, and mystical realms. Her video installations further delve into interspecies relationships, constructing layered narratives that examine connections between life forms.
Weißbach views surfaces as portals—cracks, scars, and tissues serve as gateways to biological, historical, and cultural existence. Her work decodes past, present, and future insights, challenging belief systems and renewing bonds with the earth. She ultimately explores the physicality of the human body and our interconnectedness with nature.
Weißbach grew up in the North of Germany near the Baltic Ocean. After living in Hamburg and pursuing her Undergraduate in Illustration, and Graphic Design at the University of Applied Arts, and Sculpture at the University of Fine Arts, she moved to London for her Master’s in Painting at the Royal College of Art (2020) where she lives and works. She was shortlisted for a Fellowship with London Bronze Sculpture to develop a sculpture examining the relations between language, AI and craftsmanship (2023) and for the Cob Award (2024) with an interdisciplinary project that explores the confluence of collective intelligence, bioacoustics, and ecological consciousness. Her Correspondence (sugar) series, developed in 2020, was added to the Jan van Eyck Future Material Bank in 2022. She is currently a fellow for the Leonardo Imagination program at Arizona State University, a virtual, global program developed in partnership between Leonardo and the Center for Science and the Imagination.
Latest exhibitions include Ember, Informality Gallery, Spinnerei Leipzig (2024), Taking the Light out of the Prism, Lisbon Art Weekend, Duplex Air, Lisbon (2023), Pass Your Tongue Over, Kanister, Hamburg (2023), Uncloud, Former Pieter Baan Centre (2023), Netherlands, BYOB, Bomb Factory, London (2022), Transmission, Bargehouse Oxo Tower, London (2022), Orlando, Ermita de St Pedro, Aracena, Spain (2022)), Materias Incertas, Cultural Institute de Lagos, Portugal (2020),50/50, Fold Gallery, London (2020) and Homegrown, Hauser and Wirth, London (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
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 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 Porthemeor Studio Residency, St. Ives, Cornwall, UK, 2025 (upcoming) 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