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4/8/2016 Deborah T. Colter's extraordinary abstract view - Martha's Vineyard Times

http://www.mvtimes.com/2013/07/10/deborah-t-colters-extraordinary-abstract-view-16311/ 1/5

Deborah T. Colter’s extraordinary abstract view

While many Vineyard artists try to capture the lapping of waves and the swaying of dunegrass, Deborah T. Colter transforms the Island’s same deep teals and lush greens into whollyabstract creations.

A long-time Edgartown resident, Ms. Colter has committed her career to a difficult path:working full-time as an abstract artist in an environment that embraces representationalpainters.

Working in mixed media with acrylic paint over layers of paper, Ms. Colter sands, scratches,and paints over circles, squares, and other shapes, developing canvases that are arresting intheir complexity yet accessible in their playfulness.

“Color is extremely important,” she told The Times, pointing to groupings of archivedpaintings that range in hue from deep rusts and reds to royal blues and teals, citrons, andmossy greens. Color is what first draws the eye to Ms. Colter’s paintings. But it is the

By Karla Araujo Jul 10, 2013

Deborah T. Colter debuts a new body of work with an opening reception at Cousen Rose Gallery in Oak Bluffs this Saturday, July 13, from 7

to 9 pm. — Photo by Karla Araujo



complexity of shapes and patterns that holds the viewer’s interest.

A new body of work, a departure from what she has been painting, will debut with an

opening reception at Cousen Rose Gallery in Oak Bluffs this Saturday, July 13, from 7 to 9 pm.

While her recent work was more linear and refined, Ms. Colter characterizes her new

collection, on display until July 20, as “more organic rather than structural.” She has replaced

her tighter, more organized style with a looser, less confined approach.

She explained that she typically embarks on a three- to four-year exploration of a particular

body of work. “I think you have to build a language,” she said. “It’s important to have

consistency but also to push beyond your comfort zone to get to a different place.”

Though stating that she has consciously been trying to move her work in a new direction,

Ms. Colter also draws on elements from the past. “I look all the time,” she said. “I look, study,

research. Then I step back into the studio and see what’s coming out.”

What comes out are paintings that now hang in galleries, private collections, and corporate,

retail, and institutional settings across the country. An early adopter of Internet marketing

and social media, she relies heavily on her website, email communications, Facebook, and

Twitter to keep in touch with gallery owners, collectors, and the press. Because of her

challenge as both an abstract artist in a traditional market and as an artist living in a

seasonal environment, Ms. Colter embraced the concept of self-promotion long before many

other Island artists came around to it.

“It would be a great dream to find a rep who would market my work,” she sighed. “But, as an

artist, I have to spend a good portion of my time in my studio marketing.” She has blogged

on her website in the past and hopes to return to that soon. But, in the meantime, she keeps

up a regular appearance on Facebook and Twitter. She communicates regularly with

corporate art buyers, gallery owners, and art patrons she meets at festivals she attends

throughout the year and at her annual openings at Cousen Rose.

While selling abstract paintings has its risks in a relatively conservative art market, Ms.

Colter has received enthusiastic support from Zita Cousens, owner/director at Cousen Rose.

Ms. Cousens began showing Ms. Colter’s collages in 1997, believing that they would find a

following. Over the years, the work has grown more abstract, but the gallery continues to



attract buyers who respond to what Ms. Cousens calls the “sophistication and mystery ofabstracts.” And, although Ms. Colter’s new series is a departure from the past few years, Ms.Cousens commented, “When you view the work, you’ll say, ‘That’s a Colter, isn’t it?'”

Working in a detached three-room studio/office adjacent to her mother’s home in Edgartown,Ms. Colter is surrounded by the tools of her trade: tubes, bottles and tubs of paint, brushes ofevery size, rollers, scissors, pencils, adhesive, strips of paint colors for reference, randomshreds of paper, notes taped to the walls, and small photocopied images of her paintings. Aprofusion of color and objects, the workspace reflects the artist’s love of ideas, spatialrelationships, and palette. A note bearing the words “feeling,” “texture,” “motion,” “structure,”“energy,” and “love” apparently serves as inspiration, while another displays “Land,” “Sea,” and“Sky” in very large type.

Although Ms. Colter insisted that her work is purely abstract and that she does not intend itto be interpreted otherwise, she said that many people claim to see images that arerepresentational to them.

“I just enjoy it when my work stops someone in their tracks,” she said. “They don’t speak, theyjust look. That’s what I like to see.”

And, while she did work in still life and figure drawing as part of her printmaking studies atRhode Island School of Design, she doesn’t envision a return to representational work. “I’mopen to whatever comes along,” she noted. “I just love to make marks, create on the page,give it life. Is it a piece of fruit, a body, who knows? I just like to push and not limit myself.”

Raised in Ithaca, N.Y., Ms. Colter came to the Vineyard first as a young child vacationing withher parents. She later married an Islander and settled in Edgartown, where they raised theirtwo sons.

Living on a spit of land surrounded by the sea doesn’t go unnoticed by the artist. She seesthe color of a wooden boat, the lines from a wildflower. “Colors are magic,” she explained.“The sunsets, ocean, beach. I’m so fortunate to live in a place that offers great visualstimulation. It influences my colors, but I don’t feel I have to reproduce precisely what’s here.Instead, I ask, ‘Can I use that teal blue from the beach?'”



The Island community also provides inspiration. She cites theater, dance, and other forms ofart and their creators as contributors to her passion. And, while she appreciates the close-knit Vineyard community, Ms. Colter finds that painting is a very isolating occupation. “I try toget to art openings when I can,” she said. “But I need the privacy of my studio. I work, paint,have a family, a house, and a garden. There’s not a lot of extra room. Most of myconversation is between me and my paintings.”

She usually works on different pieces at one time, always in a series of like colors. “Theyspeak to one another – back and forth, they inform one another,” she explained. And,because she is layering paint, going from one to another allows the paintings to dry andgives her the distance to evaluate a canvas in progress.

“There has to be some magic in the work,” Ms. Colter asserted. “An ‘aha!’ moment for me.”

Ms. Colter is also represented by other galleries in major markets across the U.S. She and herhusband, now retired, travel to a handful of highly selective juried art shows as well.

“I enjoy getting out and talking to art lovers,” she commented. “You don’t get that when youshow your work in multiple galleries. It’s a wonderful way to connect.”

As the sun poured into her studio windows, lighting up her already radiant canvases, Ms.Colter mentioned that she is packing her van for a drive to Denver for her first appearance atthe Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Like her approach to her work itself, she is, she said, “makingan adventure out of it.”

Deborah Colter’s new collection of abstract mixed media paintings will be on display at Cousen

Rose Gallery in Oak Bluffs from Saturday, July 13–20, with an opening reception from 7 to 9 pm

on July 13. The artist regrets she will not be in attendance. You can preview Ms. Colter’s work at

deborahcolter.com .

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Karla Araujo

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