Deborah Segun :Celebrating the Diverse Bodies of Women Through Shape and Color

Deborah Segun is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. Her 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 and sometimes unconventional mediums. Her works are mainly figurative with a focus on portraiture. 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.

Deborah Segun whose work celebrates the diverse bodies of women through shape and color, portraiture and narrative, creating an important counter-point to society’s patriarchal notions of an “ideal woman”. Combining abstraction and figuration, Segun recomposes shapes to create voluptuous figures in varied, graceful poses which celebrate the subject and imbue the viewer with a deep sense of admiration. In her paintings, her subjects maintain a steady and relaxed gaze which represents a shift in focus from typical male-centered standards of beauty. Segun’s work is a step towards claiming a new sense of freedom through art.

The inspiration behind her works stem from her personal and shared experiences as a woman, as well as observations of any given space she occupies at a time. She tries to capture these experiences through her unique and experimental use of colours and shapes. She exaggerates the figures or displaces them, as she believes it is her own way of confronting her reality. She also likes to isolate shapes from the subjects/objects and put them together to create a new composition