Beige: The Genuine Space of Existence, Time and Space
August 2026
Helene Lundbye Petersen on the Frame of Life
by Maria Belton
General Introduction
In a world saturated with images, information and noise, Danish artist and philosopher Helene Lundbye Petersen has built an entire artistic universe around connection, presence, and colour. Her life’s work, /WhitePageProject, began with a single gesture : the offering of a blank white page — and has since evolved into a living, breathing artwork that weaves together philosophy, performance, writing, and painting. At its core lies a call to return to what she names the Genuine: the raw, unfiltered resonance between self, other, and existence itself. Through her Colour Spectrum of Genuine Being, each hue becomes a space of emotion and insight — an experience to enter rather than a concept to grasp.
The Beige Space
After a row of vibrant colors comes a very humble hue, What kind of space does Beige represent?
Beige is the colour of bones, sand, and ruins, I think of it as what remains when everything else has been scraped away. When you look at a skeleton and connect to the fact that these bones once belonged to a living person — someone with a favourite colour, hair, muscles, drama, and memories. But when life is gone, all those layers disappear, and what remains is the structure. In that sense, bones become strangely similar. Ultimately we all return to this shared foundation, where the personal traits are removed and stripped to the very core.
I think of beige space in the same way. It is like a desert filled with sand. Each grain is unique, yet together they all form one vast landscape. Or like ruins of buildings that once had colourful façades, decorations, identities — blue, orange, green. Over time, those layers fade, and what remains is the foundation.
Beige is that foundation.
What does that foundation represent in the philosophy of the Colour Spectrum of Genuine Being?
Beige is the space that strips away the drama. It removes noise, doubt, and the layers we accumulate through culture and identity, bringing us closer to our own existence. When we genuinely connect with this space, it can reveal who we are — because it leaves very little to hide behind.
In that sense, The Beige Book becomes the backbone of the Colour Spectrum. It asks questions that can feel confronting: questions about existence itself, the meaning of life, and our actions.
The Beige Book introduces what you describe as a myth of creation. Why was it important for you to write a new creation myth?
I become quite humble when speaking about this, because creation myths are enormous cultural structures.
But, I believe we need one.
Human civilisation has always relied on stories of beginnings — narratives that explain where life comes from and what it means to exist. Many are thousands of years old, shaping our understanding of ourselves. The Beige Book proposes a different myth where life created life.
Could you describe that myth more clearly?
In the story, life exists in two forms. There is life in the intangible — the endless, invisible life that always exists. And there is life in the tangible — the life that we experience here, in time and space.
The myth suggests that intangible life loved life so much that it wanted to see life become life. So it created time and space.
But with time and space comes also beginnings and endings. The pain that belongs with letting go, and the fear of loss.
The intangible life had never experienced the finite before. It had never had to say goodbye, so it didn’t know how to handle it. And that is why pain and fear have so often shaped life. In many ways, this myth explains why life can feel both miraculous and frightening at once.
Where does Beige sit chronologically in the writing of the books?
It was the eighth book. After writing The Purple Book - on Language, I felt called to return to the foundational premise of my work: the terms and themes I had explored in the other books but had not yet fully placed.
Was the manuscript also written in a found notebook like the others? Do you remember where you wrote it?
Yes. All the books were. I wrote Beige over almost two years, across Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, and New York.
When writing Beige, did you experience it as calm, existential, heavy, or liberating?
This book was the hardest to write, even though it was the smallest in size and, in many ways, humble in colour. The writing flowed, but the ideas were pushing the boundaries of my own understanding, so I needed long pauses between writing the different sections. The calligraphic manuscript also ended up being created across multiple continents and cities. So, to answer your question: it was all of those things — heavy, because I had to enter a new state of thinking; calm and balanced, and finally, relieved once it was written.
What role does Beige play within the Colour Spectrum as a whole?
Beige is where we confront the frame of life.
We all exist within time and space. That frame is the same for everyone, but the experience inside it is completely unique. Beige helps us connect to both what we share — we all return to bones at some point — and to our own time and space. Every human life has a shared structure, but within it, each of us has a unique existence.
Beige asks a simple yet profound question:
What do you genuinely want to do with the time and space you have?
Photo by Morten Eggert.
You mentioned that this book can feel confronting. Why is that?
Because it removes the protective layers we build around existence. Culture, traditions, and beliefs often help us cope with the difficult fact that life is finite. Beige does not soften that reality; it asks you to feel it directly.
But this confrontation is not meant to frighten. It is meant to reveal the value of life. When we truly feel that our time is limited, existence becomes incredibly precious.
How does that philosophical idea translate into the visual works connected to Beige?
The two paintings linked to Beige originate directly from drawings in the manuscript. Both represent the same world. One shows a large, simple, bright circle — a complete form, representing the shared world we inhabit. The second shows the same world fragmented by many lines, each line reflecting a different perspective. Though we live in one world, every human experiences it differently.
The paintings are minimal — a circle, a line, a colour — because profound questions often require simplicity. A circle can contain enormous philosophical depth precisely because it is so simple. However, the pigment, layering, and brush movement imbue each stroke with emotional weight. Even the smallest detail becomes part of the painting’s language, creating depth and meaning beyond what is immediately visible. So while the image may appear minimal, the space inside it is vast.
When viewers encounter the Beige works, what do you hope they experience?
Perhaps a moment of stillness. A moment where they feel both the shared condition of being human and the uniqueness of their own existence. Beige reminds us that there is only one world — but within it, endless ways of seeing it.
And within that, each of us holds a small but irreplaceable piece of life itself.
To read more about the Beige Space, dive into her exhibition here: The Beige Space
Find the Beige Print that calls to you:
