Elias Sime: Selected Early Works

18 - 26 March 2022

  • Elias Sime’s early works reveal the influences, themes and artistic threads that continue to inform his practice. Sime utilizes weaving techniques to braid yarn, thread, buttons, bottle caps, and other materials into the increasingly abstract compositions, highlighting the unexpected beauty in the manmade. 

     

    Predating Sime's well-known Tightrope series, these canvases were made between 1999 and 2008 and highlight the style that will form the basis of his later, large-scale tableaux composed of woven wire and electrical components. 

  • “For Sime, the materials he selects, whether repurposed or new, have biographies of their own. They carry associations that, in the artist's hands, are reimagined, gaining a new existence beyond their intended use -- one that values their formal qualities, recognizes their latent beauty, and honors the work they were created to perform.”²

     

    - Tracy L. Adler

  • 'Sime's capacity to orchestrate sublime and lustrous waves of color with carefully selected yarns sewn by hand onto stretched canvas...

    "Sime's capacity to orchestrate sublime and lustrous waves of color with carefully selected yarns sewn by hand onto stretched canvas defies the imagination."³

     

    - Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi

  • "This notion of slow looking is integral to Sime's approach. In our fast-paced world, he reminds us that we must take the time to observe closely, to follow each thread. Once we allow ourselves to do so, we can get lost in the details of Sime's surfaces. His work initiates a meditative process that encourages engaged study and reflection. As we investigate and interrogate the work, we also learn about our own process of viewing it." ⁴

     

    - Tracy L. Adler 

  • The series Filega, meaning "searching," was inspired by a 2003 trip the artist made with his collaborator Meskerem Assegued to Gurage in south-central Ethiopia to document stories and ritual ceremonies of the thunder deity Bojje.

    "Weaving and embroidery are an integral part of Ethiopian culture... traditionally done by men. I grew up in the midst of this tradition. Consequently, I am inspired by the intricate nature of creating the Ethiopian fibers, but at the same time, I am a contemporary artist in expressing my reactions to my environment. I use a variety of different colored yarn in my work. I find the material perfect for expressing my ideas and identity."⁵

  • " I have done a lot of work using clothing buttons. When you wake up in the morning, you open your button or button up, and you do that with care. It is an expression of love. It puts you in contact with your body...Buttons tell the stories of the persons who used them; the human traces they hold are expressions of love."⁶

     

    - Elias Sime

  • Checklist

  • Elias Sime (b.1968 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) deftly weaves, layers and assembles carefully selected everyday materials, transforming commonplace items into lyrical...

    Elias Sime (b.1968 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) deftly weaves, layers and assembles carefully selected everyday materials, transforming commonplace items into lyrical abstract compositions that suggest topography, figuration, and color fields. He has exhibited extensively around the world. The Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College presented Elias Sime: Tightrope in the Fall of 2019. Curated by Tracy L. Adler, the Wellin Museum’s Johnson-Pote Director, the exhibition travelled to the Akron Art Museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Royal Ontario Museum. Sime was also the subject of a solo exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum in 2020.  In 2019, Elisa Sime received an African Art Award from the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize 2020. Sime's work will be featured in the 59th Venice Biennale, opening April 2022.  LEARN MORE →

  • ¹Assegued, Meskerem, "A Retrospective Observation of Elias Sime," African Identities, Routledge, 2008. 

     ² Adler, Tracy L., "Interview with Elias Sime and Meskerem Assegued", in Elias Sime: Tightrope,  p. 30. 

    ³Elias Sime quoted by Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi," Art, Life, and Emotion: Elias Sime's Affective Objects", in Elias Sime: Tightrope, ed. Tracy L. Adler,  published by Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art and DelMonico Books•Prestel,  p. 48.

    ⁴Adler, Tracy L., "Interview with Elias Sime and Meskerem Assegued", in Elias Sime: Tightrope,  p. 30. 

    ⁵ Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C.," Art, Life, and Emotion: Elias Sime's Affective Objects", in Elias Sime: Tightrope,  p. 48.

    ⁶ Elias Sime in "Art, Life, and Emotion: Elias Sime's Affective Objects", Elias Sime: Tightrope,  p. 43.