Silke Weißbach
Opacity appears precisely when darkness is made explicit
wax, fabric softener, fabric dying pigments, fluorescent pigments, (size variable), video-projection (I was sleeping sleepless and dreaming awake, 2020), size variable‘Opacity appears precisely when darkness is made explicit' is a video installation which consists of a modular floor sculpture of 20 rectangle organic segments made from wax, fabric softener, fabric dying pigments, fluorescent pigments, and the video projection 'I was sleeping sleepless and dreaming awake', (colour, sound, 4:51 min).The work was produced during the height of the lockdown in 2020 while Weissbach underwent the final term of her Master’s degree and worked from a Victorian townhouse of a befriended artist in Peckham, London (UK).
The domestic surroundings became a studio and living space in one. A singular systematic cell.A cold fireplace – has now become an interior lifestyle accessory. A gas oven – energy ignited via a burner bar producing an open flame. A classic 6a-wing-glassed window – the bridge to the outside world. The light became meaningful. Light created a rhythm. Waking up when the sun was rising and falling asleep at dusk. We have become so used to artificial light that we can no longer adapt to the natural cycles happening in front of our eyes. Within this minute, I'm writing these words, tapping gently on the keys, piecing together the single letters – the rectangle screen illuminates my face in an artificial blue.The Purkinje shift describes the capacity of the eye to shift towards the blue end of the colour spectrum necessary to adapt to darkness.
"Blue takes hold of the viewer at the extreme limit of visual perception. Blue is precisely, on this side of or beyond the object's fixed form: that it is the zone where phenomena identity vanishes." (Julia Kristeva, Giotto's Joy). A chemical reaction causes the topological surface of the screens. Wax's hydrophobic condition makes it impossible to unify with water. An intense smell of a mixture of washing powder, and fabric softener evaporates from the object. An artificial flavour, titled 'spring awakening'. Fabric dyeing pigments (Dylon, type: 'Ocean blue'), made of the organic compound triphenylmethane, mainly used in printing technology, come in dabs like the paint in pointillism paintings and mimic the colour of the ocean itself. In reality, the ocean is colourless, and so is the sky. The surface reflects short wavelengths from the sun, similar to a prism, and absorbs red light spectrum that operates on longer wavelengths. The translucent quality of the screens makes them function like a membrane—a selective barrier for light waves.The camera traces the contours of a feminine form bathed in the dawn's gentle glow, slowly moving in sinus-like waves, adapting to new–world–rhythms. Pixels disintegrate, merging into mesmerizing patterns mirroring our internal and external landscapes—a crystalline embodiment, fractured and fragile, emblematic of our vulnerability.
Our bodies serve as vessels, transmitters and conduits for a new–world–disease. Accompanied by a melodic tapestry woven from fragments of 'Voyage, voyage', whispers of sunlight, and prophetic utterances, the installation by Weißbach navigates the threshold where the phenomena's essence fades, surrendering to abstraction and transcendence. Boundaries blur, distinctions dissolve, as light contends with shadow, instinct grapples with consciousness, motion opposes inertia, and obscurity wrestles with revelation—a dialectic of existence in flux.
About Silke Weißbach
Silke Weißbach employs a material-based approach to seamlessly integrate her concepts into painting, sculpture and video-installation. Drawing on concepts of natural phenomena, she weaves dynamic assemblages connecting colour, dreams, emotions, language, memory, sounds, materials, and images to catalyst unseen worlds beyond consciousness.
In her practice, she uses techniques such as crystallisation, CGI, and 3D modelling to blend natural ingredients like herbs, flowers, sugar, milk, wine, wax, and glass into distinctive objects and speculative territories transcending the boundaries between the natural, the synthetic and the magical. This way her elements operate between compounds and codes—reflecting on the past, present, and future. In navigating these uncharted material environments, she deciphers the porous worlds we inhabit and challenges established belief systems while guiding us to retrace our natural belonging to the world.
Weißbach grew up in Germany near the Baltic Ocean. After living in Hamburg and pursuing her Undergraduate in Illustration and Graphic Design 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 since 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).