Deborah Segun

Deborah Segun (b. 1994) is a multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria, and now based in London, UK. She obtained a degree in Fashion Design at the Polimoda Institute of Fashion Design and Marketing in Florence, Italy in 2017. During her studies in fashion, she translated her own art production into clothing, creating conceptual and sculptural wearable pieces.

Segun’s works can be described as a mix between cubism and abstraction; she takes a playful, purist approach to her work by focusing on form rather than detail through the use of different artistic mediums. Her works are mainly figurative with a focus on portraiture. The inspiration behind her works stems from her personal and shared experiences as a woman, as well as observations of any given space she occupies at a time. Segun exaggerates the figures or displaces them, as she believes it is her own way of confronting how she sees things. The artist also likes to isolate shapes from her subjects or objects and put them together to create a new composition.

Celebrating the diverse bodies of women through shape and colour, Segun’s voluptuous figures dominate the canvas and are rendered with striking palettes. The artist frames each swath of pigment with sharp lines that provide context, depth, and emphasis to guide her viewers through each piece. The fractured forms often overlap with one another, seemingly displaying the subjects from multiple perspectives at once.

Segun chooses a warm and soft composition and plays on tonal differences to portray the tenderness that comes with loving and allowing yourself to be loved by others. Her paintings showcase her resolve in strengthening relationships and connections, storing profound details of friendships through mundane events, acknowledging differences and promoting harmonious balance. She tries to capture these experiences through her unique and experimental use of colours and shapes, which she believes creates a sense of simplicity and calmness out of a rather complex scenario.