Language is employed by banks around the world to communicate financial trends and attitudes and can translate into real-world capital ramifications. This use of language however, is often codified and delivered in ways that obscures its meaning from the general public, and which creates a tiered system of financial knowledge and wealth creation. ‘The bears have killed Goldilocks’ is a sculptural painting that creatively and critically examines this practice in the world of contemporary finance. The folded linen and acrylic work appropriates the phrase “In a crowded hall, exit doors are small” from a recent edition of the Royal Bank of Scotland investment newsletter. The use of this oddly provincial turn of phrase almost belied the alarmist advice the bank was communicating, but did indeed create a mini-panic in the world of investment banking. The painting liberates this sentence from its prosaic origins buried within an investment forecast, instead presenting it in thick and lustrous swirls of iridescent golden paint. However, when relegated to the gallery floor, the folded sculptural form obscures the text as well as the painting’s original banner-sized scale. These gestures seek to question the potential of language and metaphor, as well as the practice of painting and its installation, to create and destroy real and perceived value, both in the art world as well as in economics.