helen spencer

Spencer completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours at the University of Tasmania in 2025 and was awarded a University Medal. Her work has been exhibited across Lutruwita/Tasmania, including at Mona’s Dark Mofo, the Henry Jones Art Prize, and a range of artist-run and public spaces. It is in national and international private collections. Spencer has also appeared in print and undertaken commissioned public art projects.

Helen Spencer is an emerging artist living and working in Nipaluna/Hobart, Lutruwita/Tasmania. Working primarily with paint on repurposed cardboard, Spencer explores instability in the world. While often drawing on nostalgic imagery, her practice is ultimately concerned with contemporary power. A commitment to social justice underpins Spencer’s practice. The paintings emerge from a bleak sense of the present marked by polarisation and the climate crisis. Spencer is interested in how change can occur through a series of small, cumulative shifts that easily go unnoticed.

Most of Spencer’s works are on repurposed cardboard including its wear and damage. The materials fragility is important, but so is its ability to persist. Cardboard becomes a way of thinking about vulnerability and things that appear stable until they suddenly are not. 

Fragmentation is evident in Spencer’s work in different forms. Some works are built from cardboard surfaces that have been assembled. Others draw on isolated imagery sourced from mid-century National Geographic magazines. Through collage and assemblage Spencer draws attention to the way histories are constructed. This reflects an interest in how dominant versions of the past are assembled and subsequently mobilised in the present.

Fluorescence appears on both the front and reverse of many paintings, throwing coloured shadows onto the wall. It interrupts easy viewing and acts as a visual alert and brings the work into the present.