Helene Lundbye Petersen on taking responsibility for the change you want to see
by Maria Belton
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 Brown Space
We move from The Beige Space into Brown. Did Brown emerge from the space of Beige?
Brown builds directly on the awareness that Beige opens. Where Beige strips everything away and brings us to the foundation of existence, Brown begins to ask: what now?
Brown is the space of nourishment. It reminds us that everything that exists does so because it has been nourished into being.
You often work with strong visual associations for each colour. What imagery defines Brown for you?
I associate Beige with sand, but Brown with fertile soil.
Soil is full of nourishment because it is made of what has come before — it is, literally decomposed matter. What might seem like an ending becomes the very condition for something new to grow.
What has died becomes nourishment for what is to come.
How does this translate from the physical into the philosophical space of Brown?
Brown expands that very literal understanding into a symbolic awareness.
It shows us that we are always nourishing something. Every thought, every action, every feeling contributes to what grows — within ourselves and in the world around us. The world we see today exists in the way it does because it has been nourished into that form over time. Brown makes that visible.
Why does this make Brown particularly relevant today?
Because it brings us face to face with responsibility.
If everything is nourished into being, then we must ask: what are we choosing to nourish?
Brown is like a garden that calls us in. It invites us to plant seeds — ideas, actions, ways of being. But it also reminds us that planting is not enough.
We must be patient and look far.
If we do not nurture what we plant, it will not grow.
If we neglect it, it will fade.
If we overwhelm it, we may destroy it.
It is a cyclical space that holds the laws of becoming.
Embodying Nourishment, Photo by Morten Eggert at Sprouting and blooming field, Langebæk, Denmark
How did this understanding influence your work with the Brown paintings?
I was very drawn to the depth of the colour itself.
In Denmark, where I am from, the soil is a very dark brown — A tone like chocolate, or dark roasted coffee — almost black, but not quite. It holds an incredible richness and depth. I wanted to capture that tone in the paintings — something that could shift depending on the light, sometimes appearing lighter, sometimes much darker. I think this dark brown hue captures the richness and abundance of a fertile and nourishing space that holds the mystery and depth that brings something to life.
You mentioned that your process changed while working on Brown. What happened?
The Brown Book - On Nourishment contains more drawings than the earlier books. It was the point where I began to work more visually within the manuscripts themselves.
Initially, I selected one of these drawings to translate into a painting. But during the process, I made a decision I had not made before: I painted over it completely and chose a different symbol.
At first, I was surprised by this. I had not altered the visual direction in that way before. But it made perfect sense.
Why did that shift feel necessary?
Because Brown is about becoming.
The first image represented something already forming — a becoming. But by painting over it, I created space for something else: potential.
It became an act of nourishment in itself.
Could you describe the final imagery that emerged?
One of the paintings is a circle containing a darker core. It reminds me of an egg, a seed, something that holds life within it, not yet realised, but ready to become - if it receives the right nourishment. Until then, it is merely what could emerge, a presence of potential.
The second image is rooted in the idea of roots.
I find roots deeply fascinating. They are hidden beneath the surface, yet they are what sustain everything above. You see the tree, but you do not see the system that nourishes it.
The roots spread, searching for water, for nutrients — quietly enabling growth.
And beneath both paintings, you see the shadows, or outlines, of the two original drawings. They are not immediate, but they are there, beneath it all.
There seems to be a tension in Brown between what is and what is not yet. Is that central to the space?
Very much so.
Brown holds that delicate and sometimes difficult state of being in between. It is the place where you can almost sense what could become — but it is not here yet.
And that requires something from us.
It requires patience and attention. It requires care.
You must connect to what is not yet visible. You need to believe in it, and choose to nourish it into existence.
What do you hope people become aware of when they enter the Brown Space?
That they are already participating in creation. With everything they think, feel and do, they are nourishing their future.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are always shaping what comes next through what we nourish.
Brown asks us to become aware of that — and to take responsibility for it.
Because the future is not something that simply arrives.
It is something we grow.
To read more about the Brown Space, dive into her exhibition here: The Brown Space
Find the Brown Print that calls to you:
