Elias Sime

James Cohan is pleased to present FINAL DROP (የመጨረሻዋ ጠብታ), an exhibition of new works by Elias Sime, on view at 48 Walker Street from February 20 through March 21, 2026. This is Sime’s seventh solo exhibition with James Cohan. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Friday, February 20 from 6-8 PM.

 

FINAL DROP (የመጨረሻዋ ጠብታ) features new woven electrical wire assemblages from the artist’s ongoing Tightrope series. Working with electronic components such as circuit boards, computer keys, and telecommunications wires, Sime creates lyrical abstract compositions that shift seamlessly between human emotions and evocations of landscapes using expansive fields of radiant colors. These works represent the movement of material goods across the globe while illuminating the fragility of our networked existence. Reflecting the dynamic interplay between technological progress and human experience, his works capture the ways our lives are bound to the devices that surround us.

 

While recent Tightrope works have been characterized by subtly shifting tonalities, the new works foreground sinuous biomorphic forms alongside bold geometric patterning. Ovoid, cellular shapes that suggest droplets of water or human gestation and curling vines that evoke budding plant life contain–or are contained–by rhythmic cubic tessellations. These juxtapositions between the axonometric and organic allow Sime to posit connections between our built and natural environments. As Andria Hickey writes, “The use of organic references here evokes a sense of interconnectedness, revealing the ways that mass-produced objects shape both natural and human-made realms. Just as elements in nature go through cycles of growth, decay, and regeneration, the electronic components in Sime’s art undergo a transformation from their original purpose to become part of a new artistic creation, echoing the natural cycles of birth, life, death, and renewal.”

 

Sime selects his material to best express his compositions, simultaneously creating a generative space for his audience to find their own meaning in the work from their own perspective. He enjoys listening to their reaction and understanding their own personal connections to the work. Sime describes his own practice as an articulation of his emotions. He does not make art for the audience. Instead, he makes art to release the joys or agonies that he cannot easily express in words. In this context, Sime’s art is unequivocally contemporary, expressing the now. 

 

As an extension of his art-making, Sime along with Meskerem Assegued, a curator and an anthropologist are deeply committed to the preservation and regeneration of vernacular architectures and landscaping influenced by ancient architecture from various parts of the world. Together they designed and built the award-winning Zoma Museum in Addis Ababa, an environmentally conscious international art center described by The New York Times as “a voluptuous dream, a swirl of ancient technique and ecstatic imagination. Zoma Museum that opened in 2019 has expanded facilities that include a gallery space, library, children’s center, edible garden, elementary school, art and vernacular school, amphitheater, cafe and museum shop.

 

Building on this vision, Sime and Assegued recently designed and built Zoma Village, a new cultural center high on Entoto Mountain National Park at the edge of the city center. Whether conceived as a museum or experienced as a work of art, similar to Sime’s distinctive approach to his art, the Zoma Village reflects: slow, deliberate, and attention to every detail. At Entoto, art is fully integrated into the landscape: pavements are inlaid with butterflies, walls are carved with hieroglyphic birds, and large sculpted ducks perched atop tall concrete pillars survey the surrounding terrain, merging architecture, sculpture, and environment into a singular, immersive experience.