Deborah Segun

Deborah Segun’s paintings encourage self love. Influenced by the collective experience of womanhood, she references issues like body image ideals and gender binaries. To create her works, Segun layers 2-D planes of paint on her canvas. She says “I am the most interested in figuring out what colours to use. That’s what I spend most of my time doing before I start painting.” Using bright and contrasting shades, Segun creates her compositions by combining cubism and abstraction. This allows her to create new and interesting perspectives within her work.

Through her images, Segun rebukes the body standards advertised in the media. She comments on how female bodies are made ‘fashionable’. Saying that “as you grow up you are fed with things that you should believe, how to look, how to behave and especially as a woman – there is always an extra expectation of who you should be.” Rather than illustrating this supposed ideal, Segun represents the intimacy of the female experience. For example, her work As I am (2020) depicts a voluptuous woman in the nude, relaxing, covering only her breasts. She gazes out of the canvas self-confidently. As Segun comments, “I want people to be more conscious of how to be themselves".