Silke Weissbach creates abstract paintings that operate as living systems. Her work explores an embodied ecology, understanding transformation as both chemical and emotional, and grounded in the belief that our connection to the natural world is a form of knowledge we are continually relearning.
Materials play an active role in Weissbach’s practice. Living close to natural environments enables her to forage and gather biological matter, which she combines with synthetic compounds drawn from consumer and cosmetic industries. This pairing reflects a central concern in her work: the entanglement of natural and manufactured systems. Working with materials including hyaluronic acid, collagen, plant extracts, mineral compounds and gathered botanicals, Weissbach allows their behaviour to shape the image. Liquids pool and recede, pigments disperse and concentrate, while surfaces fracture, contract and evolve over time.
Through layering and environmental control, Weissbach guides processes of crystallisation, absorption and sedimentation, creating paintings that function as records of material transformation. Informed by feminist ecology and ongoing research into shamanic traditions, animist thought and astrology, her practice considers the relationships between matter, perception and life itself.
Weissbach grew up in northern Germany near the Baltic Sea. She studied Illustration and Graphic Design before undertaking Sculpture at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, and later completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2020, where she now lives and works.
In 2025, Weissbach was awarded the Winsor & Newton and Paul Smith Foundation Art Prize and completed the Imagination Fellowship at Arizona State University. Her Correspondence (Sugar) series was added to the Jan van Eyck Future Materials Bank in 2022. Recent residencies include Xenia in Hampshire and Porthmeor Studios in Cornwall in 2024.
Studio: London, UK
