Elias Sime: Tightrope

Elias Sime: Tightrope
September 7 - December 8, 2019
Curated by Tracy L. Adler, Johnson-Pote Director, Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College
Video by Brett Novak
Featuring more than twenty-five works of art of varying scales, including new work created by the artist to debut in this exhibition, Elias Sime: Tightrope explores the full breadth of Sime’s practice. A selection of early, stitched canvases incorporating bottle caps, buttons, and other found objects, critical to the artist’s development, will be presented alongside the “Tightrope” series. Sime’s visual references and influences are wide-ranging. From the brushwork of the Impressionist painters to the Twitter logo, from socialist realism to topographic photography, from linguistics to botany, all sources are fair game and ripe for interpretation. These divergent themes, which find harmonious confluence in his work, access the rich vocabulary and history of both natural and created forms. As an extension of his artistic practice and a thread throughout his work, Sime, with the anthropologist and curator Meskerem Assegued, founded the Zoma Museum, which opened in Addis Ababa in 2019. Comprising a school, farm, garden, library, and exhibition and project space, Zoma offers a holistic conception of how community, sustainability, and art can be merged into a unified vision-one that posits a way forward toward a future in which nature, society, and creativity thrive together.

[@elkesavala6221]

Elias is a beautiful human being and that reflects in his art

[@lynnbouchard2756]

Loved this!