Deborah Osberg

Deborah Osberg is a South African abstract artist (1959, Durban). Deborah's mixed media artworks incorporate acrylics, charcoal, chalk, ink, and fragments of academic text, deconstructing themes of power and knowledge.

After a long career as an educational theorist, during which she earned a doctorate, Osberg turned to abstract art as a powerful means of exploring themes that resonate on a deeply personal level. Influenced by her experience growing up in apartheid South Africa, her thought-provoking mixed media pieces confront viewers with her unsettling and visceral responses to the colonizing forces behind "established" truths. In her academic writing, Deborah drew on the ideas of Foucault and Derrida to navigate tensions within systems of power, this is reflected in her art.

The rawness of her process is integral to her work: tearing, layering, and juxtaposing fragments of academic texts—both her own and those of others—into disjointed arrangements that evoke a sense of rupture and resistance. She paints over, censors, or obscures texts, creating richly textured surfaces that reveal traces of what is hidden beneath. The resulting compositions are not merely visual narratives but tactile experiences that invite the viewer to question what is shown and what is concealed.