Deborah Segun (b. 1994) is a Nigerian painter who graduated in fashion design from the Polimoda Institute in Florence in 2017. She has had solo exhibitions with BEERS London and at the Saatchi Gallery in London, and has shown at Frieze and The Armory Show. Her almost Cubist paintings render the female figure through fragmented, exaggerated forms, often showing contemplative or resting women on a journey from self-criticism to self-acceptance.
Deborah Segun (b. 1994, Nigeria) is a Nigerian painter. She studied fashion design at the Polimoda Institute of Fashion Design and Marketing in Florence, Italy, graduating in 2017; during her studies she translated artistic ideas into conceptual, sculptural wearable pieces. Her paintings take a deconstructed, reductive, almost Cubist approach, depicting the female figure through fragmented and exaggerated shapes, faces and forms. She draws on personal and shared experiences as a woman, and her work often portrays contemplative or resting women, reflecting on how the female body has been represented in art history, from the Venus of Willendorf to Picasso. Themes of self-reflection and the passage from self-criticism to self-acceptance run through her practice. Her debut solo exhibition with BEERS London, “How to Fall in Love” (5 December 2021 – 15 January 2022), explored how we come to embrace the parts of ourselves we have not fully loved. Further solo exhibitions followed at Breeder Gallery in Athens and ADA contemporary art gallery in Accra (both 2022), BEERS London (“Where Is My Mind?”, 2023) and the Saatchi Gallery in London (“A Moment to Myself”, 2024–25). Her work has also been shown at art fairs including Frieze London, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles, The Armory Show and 1-54 London. The painting “There’s Always Time For Rest” (2021), acrylic on canvas, 51 × 61 cm, offered by TUMO Gallery, was exhibited in “How to Fall in Love” at BEERS London.
