Article by Index Digital Team | 18th March 2024

Hastings Contemporary Announces Major Spring Exhibition

Elias Sime: Eregata እርጋታ is an exhibition from one of Ethiopia’s leading contemporary artists and will run until 8th September 2024. Plus, Sir Quentin Blake has returned to Hastings Contemporary with a brand new show called A Hundred Portraits, which features original work that the gallery will sell to support its ongoing programme of work.

Top Image Veiled Whispers, 2021. Courtesy the artist Elias Sime and James Cohan Gallery. Photo Thomas Barratt

Hastings Contemporary, one of the UK’s leading contemporary galleries on England’s south coast, opened on 16th March with a spectacular show from one of Ethiopia’s most exciting contemporary artists, Elias Sime.

Elias Sime: Eregata እርጋታ celebrates the work of this multi-disciplinary artist, who fuses extraordinary craftsmanship with a plethora of man-made objects. Elias’s work has been lauded across the globe and will feature prominently at the 2024 Venice Biennale. His artistic approach is so relevant in today’s unstable world, encouraging us to re-examine our relationship with our environment.

Eregata እርጋታ will focus on the last decade of Elias’s career, with over 20 works on display, including complex and lyrical abstract topographies from his landmark series Tightrope (2009-present), and Bareness (2014), a large-scale ceramic installation consisting of 192 clay vessels.

Elias’s work is a record of the global exchange of commodities and how they are transformed from raw materials to machine, then into waste and finally their renaissance as art. The artist is revered for his progressive fusion of matter and artistic ideas, exploring global issues of sustainability, the resources we consume, and the impact of technology on today’s society.

The exhibition title Eregata እርጋታ is derived from Amharic, which the artist translates to the English word ‘serene’. Although one view of that word positively conveys a sense of stillness and calm, Elias describes ‘eregata’ as recognition that our minds are never truly still or calm: ‘we struggle to stop and sleep because our brains are constantly stimulated by technology – we are constantly moving faster not slower’. Elias works against this fixation with technology, embracing a notion of slowness, ‘my art is slowing it down. The work forces me to slow down.’

Elias adopts a collaborative approach, working with a team of studio assistants to create his artwork; a process which is reflective of the reused and repurposed technological materials which have passed through numerous hands in their journey from raw material to waste.

Commenting on the exhibition, Elias Sime said: "Each material I collect has its own story, and has been touched by many hands. It has its own language. All the different stories related to the material move me, and I transform these intuitive reactions into my compositions."

Liz Gilmore, Director of Hastings Contemporary said: "As part of Hastings Contemporary’s ongoing commitment to bringing world-class art to Hastings, we are thrilled to be launching our spring season by showcasing the work of Ethiopian artist, Elias Sime. Running concurrently with Sime’s exhibition in Venice, this ambitious exhibition offers fresh dialogue about globally important matters of environmental sustainability and the impacts of technology, made all the more poignant by the gallery’s unique position between land and sea."

The exhibition marks the start of Hastings Contemporary’s spring season and will appear alongside an exhibition of work by Sir Quentin Blake. The gallery is also delighted to announce the extension of the half-price ticket offer to residents of Rother District Council in addition to Hastings District Council, with the aim of welcoming even more visitors to the gallery.

Elias Sime: Eregata እርጋታ originated at Arnolfini, Bristol UK, and is a collaboration with Hastings Contemporary and Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany.

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Image Quentin Blake, Imaginary Portraits series

Quentin Blake – A Hundred Portraits

Until 8th September 2024

This spring, the legendary artist Sir Quentin Blake returns to Hastings Contemporary with an exhibition of one hundred unique imaginary portraits. Every artwork will be for sale and has been philanthropically donated by Sir Quentin, with prices starting at a few hundred pounds. Sir Quentin is Hastings Contemporary’s Artist Patron, supporting the gallery in its charitable mission to bring world-class art to the town for the benefit and enjoyment of everyone.

Quentin says: "For 40 years, I had an ancient house in Hastings Old Town, with boats close by, and then one day they built an art gallery at the bottom of the street. I have spent a lot of time over the years creating commissioned work, and Hastings Contemporary has inspired in me a freedom to make work for myself. Next year the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration will open in London, but Hastings will always be my spiritual home."

The portraits on display will range from large works in watercolour pencil to postcard-sized pieces in biro.

Speaking about the creative process behind these works, Quentin says: "When I start to draw, I might have a sense of whether it will be a man or woman, young or old, but I discover the person while doing it… slowly I begin to meet the person and find out who they are."

Liz Gilmore, Director of Hastings Contemporary says: "Whoever you are and however you do it, drawing can be transformative! These inspiring words stated by Quentin in our conversations about the making of this show capture the ethos and intentions of our gallery and the exhibition. Hastings and Rother is a place of astonishing creativity, we are inviting everyone to visit the gallery and make use of our Drawing Hub, a dedicated space for all ages and abilities to enjoy the power of drawing.

"At Hastings Contemporary we recognise the vital and transformative power of art to transcend boundaries and borders. We launch this show in tandem with the rollout of our local ticket discount to include Rother residents, as well as Hastings residents, so more people than ever can visit the gallery for half price."

Sir Quentin is also working on a written text which the gallery has commissioned to coincide with the exhibition.