Silke Weißbach employs a material-based approach to seamlessly integrate her ideas into painting, sculpture and video-installation. Drawing on concepts of light, colour and liquids, she weaves hybrid material assemblages combining natural elements, emotions, language, memory, sounds, and images to catalyst worlds beyond consciousness.
She combines traditional and modern alchemical processes taken from craft, mysticism, and techno-culture such as crystallisation, distillation, and extraction besides CGI and 3D-printing to process organic elements related to the consumer and cosmetic industries like herbs, hormones, fungi, flowers, fruits, sugar, formula milk, wine, and wax. These nourished entanglements conjure ethereal artifacts and speculative realms that blur the lines between the corporeal, the feminine, the natural, the synthetic, and the mystical.
Surfaces go deeper than we think – cracks, scars, and tissues serve as gateways and contact zones into realms of our biological, historical, and cultural origins. Built upon a desire to redirect deeply inherited opinions of the porous and malleable worlds we navigate through, her elements operate between compounds and codes. By deciphering information from our past, present, and future, she navigates uncharted material environments to unveil the interconnection and intraconnection of our existence, challenges conventional belief systems while guiding us to retrace our natural belonging to the world.
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.
Latest exhibitions include 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 upcoming Lavender, Hibernation and Neon, curated by Yueh-Ning Lee @Crypt Gallery, London, UK (g) Greatorex Street Gallery, London, UK(g) Artperitivo Gallery, Lisbon (s)
2023 Taking The Light Out Of The Prism, Duplex Gallery, Lisbon Art Weekend, Lisbon, Portugal (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)
Publications 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
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
Awards, Grants & Scholarship Shortlisted for Cob Award, 2024 Shortlisted for London Bronze Fellowship, 2023 Karl H. Ditze Grant for the Best Project, 2014 Erasmus program, scholarship for Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, 2014
