Deborah Dainese

Deborah Dainese is a CHASE-DTP funded PhD candidate at the Sainsbury Research Unit for the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. Her research focusses on the biography of the Congolese modern artist Matshitolo (c.1905-c.1974), who lived and worked in the Kwango-Kwilu region in the mid-Twentieth century. She is particularly interested in Congolese colonial and post-colonial art, archives, and missionary exhibitions.  

Deborah has gained valuable knowledge and experience in curatorial museum practice through her position as assistant curator, art cataloguer, and visitor assistant at the Diocesan Museum of Vicenza (Italy). In 2023, she worked as assistant curator for Africa, with special emphasis on provenance research, at the Ethnological Museum “Anima Mundi”, Vatican Museums.

She is a freelance illustrator working with mix-media techniques.

• 20th century missionary collections
• Researching archives
• Arts and anthropology of West-Central Africa
• Arts of the Democratic Republic of Congo
• Museum studies and provenance research 
• Biographies 

Co-lead Sainsbury Research Unit Graduate Conference (24-26 May 2023)