- Venue
- 1 Middle Street ( previouslyy Illustration Gallery )
- Starts
- Friday, February 5, 2010
- Ends
- Saturday, February 20, 2010
- Address
- 1 Middle Street, Stroud. Gloucestershire GL5 1DZ
- Location
- South West England
Exhibition of Winter paintings inspired by the lakes and forests of central Sweden. ‘Ange Mullen-Bryan describes her paintings as being, ‘Somewhere between comfort and unease’. Certainly when confronted by her work the viewer is struck by a sense of loneliness; a quiet, unsettling beauty. These stark landscapes of ice and water, and straight, dominant trees, plunge the viewer into a world where the real and imagined seem to co-exist. The lack of human figures increases the sense of awe and wilderness, as do the remnants of human presence: a discarded boat, an empty hut. What has happened in this landscape; what is the forest hiding, revealing? This landscape is the landscape of Sweden, which has a wildness, in terms of its extremes of weather, and its open, sparsely-populated vastness. Ange makes frequent trips to Sweden, where she sketches and photographs the changing landscape, and absorbs its atmosphere. Yawning Lake, 2007, shows still, sleepy water, smothered by snow and frost; framed by the barest of trees. Vemod, 2009, shivers with the bleakest of winters. The contrast between the black background of night, and the white of the snow-clad branches, creates a mood of disquieting mystery. This is a primal landscape, where the viewer can imagine the footprints of wolves…’ Press release by Laura Kinnear.
