I am an emerging artist recently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours at the University of Tasmania in 2025 and was awarded a University Medal. After a career in education, I am now focussed on establishing a conceptually driven art practice spanning painting, drawing, collage and other artforms. A fundamental aspect of my work is a deep commitment to social justice, quietly resisting systems of power and exclusion.

My current practice considers how nostalgia influences the way we think about the environment, gender and social change. It references collaged mid-century imagery in a piecing together to create meaning, just as we make sense of images, histories and ideas by connecting fragments and filling gaps.

Fluorescence recurs throughout my current work, operating as a high-alert signal and interrupting easy viewing. It suggests the need to remain alert to what is changing, asking questions about what those changes might mean and how we are implicated by them. The cardboard holds both symbolic and practical significance, allowing me to investigate themes of consumerism, fragility, damage and weight.

Helen Spencer