ROCK PAPER SCISSORS

29 November - 20 December 2025 & 8 - 17 January 2026

Bringing together the works of twelve leading contemporary artists, the exhibition mimics the universal playground game it borrows its name from - distilling decisions into simple gestures.

The works on view embrace pared-back processes and raw, primordial materials, unveiling beauty in the handmade and the natural. Artists in the exhibition adapt elemental forms and mould familiar, often organic matter – stone, wood, fibre, pigment, feathers and found fragments – into playful new expressions. As the title evokes, the exhibition is a joyful reminder of the enduring creativity sparked by simple acts and materials.

The artists featured, Kate MccGwire, Ted Rogers, Susanna Bauer, Alice Freeman, Anya Paintsil, Darren Appiagyei, Hana Moazzeni (Previously Shahnavaz), Hew Locke, Nicholas Lees, Dean Coates, Peter Randall-Page, and Amy Stephens work in various forms, spanning sculpture, painting, textile, fibre art and installation. Materials emerge as metaphors associated with endurance, transience, and transformation, inviting viewers to consider how seemingly simple acts of choice and competition can reveal deeper structures of balance, vulnerability, and adaptation. Just as each move in the game both dominates and surrenders, the works in this exhibition also engage in cycles of tension and resolution, celebrating the resourcefulness of creativity and the possibility of creating something almost from nothing.

Among the highlights, Anya Paintsil presents two new textile pieces, made using traditional techniques such as Welsh rug hooking and embroidery, and giving new forms and life to materials like denim, leather and wool, each with their own intrinsic material histories and resonances of durability, resistance and strength. Kate MccGwire presents a series of abject sculptures, made primarily using feathers the artist collects, sorts, cleans and hones into muscular, robust looking sculptures that also play with inherent notions about surface, softness and resilience. Meanwhile, wood artist Darren Appiagyei, reconfigures locally sourced wood into delicate assemblages, balancing heaviness and levity with quiet precision.

CLOSE’s Somerset galleries are altered and enlivened by the dialogues between these works - a space where material and metaphor meet. The eleven artists collectively examine how materials themselves become agents of play and opposition, inviting both participation and pause, a sequence of moves, like the game that inspired the show’s premise.

Rock Paper Scissors continues CLOSE’s commitment to presenting exhibitions that foster dialogue between material experimentation and critical reflection. Founded in 2019 by Freeny Yianni, CLOSE operates as both a gallery and project space dedicated to contemporary art practices that question form, context, and community.