Using elements and techniques derivative of assemblage, process, and outsider art, today’s object makers have embraced the use of esoteric and mundane matter to expand the scope of sculptural inquiry and make wry commentaries on contemporary experience. Featured in Rock, Paper, Scissors are sculptures and drawings by three artists who reconstruct the reality of their passions using the raw and lyrical language of unconventional materials.

Jay Batlle describes his piece Credit Sharks as a linkage of two obsessive cultural phenomena- surfing and credit card debt, linked formally by their common cyclical nature: ”waves come in sets, large and small that the surfer rides; similarly credit card bills appear every month and the consumer rides the debt. Both activities require a degree of bravado and both hold the promise (or threat) of a fatal crash”. Drawings from Batlle’s Minimalist Series combine teaser lines from Mark Bittman’s New York Times culinary column with sketches referencing canonized modernist masterpieces. Again Batlle questions the conjunction of two elitist lifestyle activities- the appreciation and patronage of contemporary art and gourmet food.

Doug Bosch is attracted to the processes of accumulation, piling and stacking. “I find that when multiples accumulate and reach a critical mass, a special condition emerges in which the individual parts compound and strike a provocative consonance, In making my work, I monitor the density and performance of my materials (pollen, silicone, graphite particles) watching for that moment when the condition of accumulation becomes physically significant and resonant...” Chandelier/Swarm was made by repeatedly dipping numerous lengths of string into a solution of pollen until bulbous pods slowly formed at the string ends. Gathered together and hung from from the ceiling, Bosch’s piece suggests a suspended surrealistic hive.

Jill Slosburg-Ackermann's works, such as her End Table with Star and Pith, Jist, and Crux reflect her focus on: “the joining of disparate and often opposing objects in order to create a new harmony; the contrast between nature and artifice; the relationship of handmade objects to manufactured products; and the tension between sculpture and design”. Describing her drawing practice she says “ I am engaged in particular with issues of material figure-ground relationships and framing as reflected in the constructed wood elements in the drawings. My recent Framing Drawings are hybrid works that collapse the boundary between drawing and frame through interacting carved and painted passages”.