Elias Sime
Eregata እርጋታ, the second leg of his first European solo exhibition, is on view at Hastings Contemporary from March 16 through September 8, 2024. The exhibition originated at Arnolfini, United Kingdom, and will travel to Kunstpalast Düsseldorf in Spring 2025.
Eregata እርጋታ primarily focuses on work from the past twenty years, including Sime’s monumental Venice Biennale commission Veiled Whispers, 2022, alongside intricately woven abstract topographies from the landmark series Tightrope, 2009 to present, key works from his early stitch, yarn and button series, and the tactile fragility of Bareness, a large-scale ceramic installation from 2014.
The exhibition’s title, Eregata እርጋታ, emerges from the artist’s language, Amharic, translated by Sime into as closest in meaning to the calmness and tranquility of the English word serene. Yet, for all its suggestions of calm to a western ear, for Sime eregata reflects a recognition that our minds are never truly still or silent: “we struggle to stop and sleep because our brains are constantly stimulated by technology – we are constantly moving faster not slower.”