BIOGRAPHY

Deborah Osberg is a South African artist currently living in Portugal. Her artistic focus has grown from a career as an educational theorist in Britain, following her experiences of colonising forces while living and working as a white zoology lecturer in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Her art explores tensions within political systems of power and control.

Osberg uses acrylics, charcoal, chalk, ink, wax, rust and fragments of academic text to create richly textured surfaces that reveal traces of what is hidden beneath. The rawness of her artistic 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. The resulting compositions are not merely visual narratives but tactile experiences that invite the viewer to question what is shown and what is concealed.

RESUME

Born in Durban, South Africa, 1959
Lives and works in Famalicão da Serra, Central Portugal

EDUCATION
Master of Science, Zoology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 1988.
Doctor of Philosophy, Educational Philosophy, The Open University, UK, 2005.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Deborah Osberg Art, Cultural Centre of Famalicão da Serra, Portugal.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Art in the Garden with Otherworlds Artists Collective, Melo, Portugal
2024 Exhibition of work by Otherworlds Artists Collective, Tabua, Portugal
2025 Xochi Art Gallery Pop-up event at Expoestrela, Mantiegas, Portugal

ONLINE EXHIBITIONS
2024 Xochi Art Gallery, Portugal https//Xochi.art
2024 Otherworlds Artists Collective, Portugal http://otherworldscollective

FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS
October 2025, Solo exhibition, Xochi Art Gallery, Portugal https://Xochi.art

COLLECTIONS
Wayne Faulds, Johannesburg, South Africa
Chloe Bradbury-Rutherford, Mortagua, Portugal
Luc Levez, Vale de Amoreira, Portugal
Frederic Develay, Manteigas, Portugal
Belinda Levez, Vale de Amoreira, Portugal
Sally Giles, Brixham, Great Britain
Patricia Angoy, Luxembourg