PAINT IT GOLD
Ange Mullen-Bryan

Ange’s latest paintings express something golden. Something golden within the natural world. Not only through responding to the way nature itself paints golds, with light for instance. But in reflecting nature’s powerful influence and value which is frequently experienced by us intangibly - within our bodies, minds and sense of self. 

Influence for example, that means the green colours and forms that we hid amongst whilst evolving still have the power to reassure us that we are safe, measurably refreshing our attention, slowing our hearts and easing our anxiety. 

Value, in that the sights and sounds of the non-human world, like birds and birdsong, can improve our mood and diminish feelings of isolation, connecting us with communities beyond our own. 

Influence that continually inspires our creativity, alongside our perception of who we are.

Ange’s recent paintings articulate very clearly what is frequently hard to capture, communicate and hold on to, the powerful influence and value, the gold, nature possesses for us. At the same time they embody something darker - the ever present risk and reality that through not valuing this treasure that sustains us, all is lost.

Alice Goodenough

Gold is a symbol of reverence, of wealth and divinity, used to inspire awe.

‘Desirable for its unique luminosity and rarity, gold is still the bedrock of our wealth and economies. Found in objects and artworks from cultures all over the world, the insatiable appetite for gold was so great that it brought the demise of entire civilisations’ (1)


I reflect in these paintings on the value of nature, our perception of that value, our pillaging of it. Our separation from, or connection to it.

There is an urgency here, I want to paint it gold, to scream about its treasure.
To cast nature as inspiration, to hold nature in our awe.
To revere it.

I Paint it Gold.

Ange Mullen-Bryan.

(1) Lydia Figes ‘Colour in Art – a brief History of Gold