Viewing Rock, Paper, Scissors at CLOSE Gallery

Rock Paper Scissors opens at CLOSE Gallery in Somerset this week, a compelling group exhibition conceived around the simplicity and spontaneity of the eponymous playground game. The show draws parallels between its three gestures and the elemental relationships between hand, material, and imagination.

Featuring twelve artists including Kate McGwire, Ted Rogers, Hew Locke, Nicholas Lees, and Peter Randall-Page, the exhibition emphasises raw materials — stone, wood, fibre, feathers, found fragments, and pigment. The works foreground pared-back, handcrafted processes, allowing the tactile, evocative qualities of natural matter to narrate the works.

It’s also an exhibition about play and celebrating the resourcefulness of creativity. The motif of “rock, paper, scissors” becomes a metaphor for decision-making, balance, and opposition—as the works presented negotiate contrasts between weight and lightness, solidity and fragility, tension and repose. In the unique and serene setting of CLOSE’s glorious Somerset space, this elemental and poetic exhibition invites visitors to contemplate the fundamental and universal aspects of making.