Helle Cook is a Danish-Australian artist based in Meanjin/Brisbane. In her art practice, Helle explores the sensory experience of light and place, in expanded painting. Living in, and between, Australia and Denmark, has sparked Helle’s curiosity about memories and felt perception of light and environment and how this can be explored in illuminated layers of paint.

Helle’s painterly enquiry often expands beyond the studio as she embarks on field trips around Queensland and beyond, often accompanied by her diaphanous textile works. Within the landscape, Helle creates ephemeral textile installations before documenting the work and its interaction with light and the environment. Being immersed in nature ignites one's senses and awakens environmental awareness. It is this notion that greatly informs Helle’s gestural response back in her studio, where she works on large-scale, unframed canvases pinned to the wall. The works in the Nature of Light series are all painted this way and are immensely inspired by being immersed in, and taking care of, our precious luminous natural environments. Helle’s work lingers in the threshold between abstraction and landscape painting and evokes a connection with our own sensory perception and imagination.

Helle holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (with Honours) from Queensland College of Art (QCA) and has had solo and group exhibitions in Queensland and Victoria. Her painterly enquiry is intercultural and she has undertaken artist residencies in Australia, Italy and Denmark. This year, in 2021, Helle’s solo-exhibition Sheer Light was shown at Redland Art Gallery, Capalaba from March-May. Meanwhile, she was artist-in-residence with Metro Arts in their Teneriffe Ferryman’s hut location. During October 2021, Helle will be undertaking an artist residency at Cooroy Butter Factory Art Centre on the Sunshine Coast. Although Helle is mainly based in Meanjin/Brisbane on Yugara and Turrbal Country, she also travels to, and works from, other parts of Australia - and hopefully before too long, in Denmark and beyond.