Deborah T. Colter`s extraordinary abstract view

4/8/2016
Deborah T. Colter's extraordinary abstract view - Martha's Vineyard Times
Deborah T. Colter’s extraordinary abstract view
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
While many Vineyard artists try to capture the lapping of waves and the swaying of dune
grass, Deborah T. Colter transforms the Island’s same deep teals and lush greens into wholly
abstract 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 representational
painters.
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 in
their complexity yet accessible in their playfulness.
“Color is extremely important,” she told The Times, pointing to groupings of archived
paintings that range in hue from deep rusts and reds to royal blues and teals, citrons, and
mossy greens. Color is what first draws the eye to Ms. Colter’s paintings. But it is the
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Deborah T. Colter's extraordinary abstract view - Martha's Vineyard Times
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
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Deborah T. Colter's extraordinary abstract view - Martha's Vineyard Times
attract buyers who respond to what Ms. Cousens calls the “sophistication and mystery of
abstracts.” 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 of
every size, rollers, scissors, pencils, adhesive, strips of paint colors for reference, random
shreds of paper, notes taped to the walls, and small photocopied images of her paintings. A
profusion of color and objects, the workspace reflects the artist’s love of ideas, spatial
relationships, 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 it
to be interpreted otherwise, she said that many people claim to see images that are
representational to them.
“I just enjoy it when my work stops someone in their tracks,” she said. “They don’t speak, they
just 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 at
Rhode Island School of Design, she doesn’t envision a return to representational work. “I’m
open 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 with
her parents. She later married an Islander and settled in Edgartown, where they raised their
two sons.
Living on a spit of land surrounded by the sea doesn’t go unnoticed by the artist. She sees
the 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 visual
stimulation. 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?'”
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Deborah T. Colter's extraordinary abstract view - Martha's Vineyard Times
The Island community also provides inspiration. She cites theater, dance, and other forms of
art and their creators as contributors to her passion. And, while she appreciates the closeknit Vineyard community, Ms. Colter finds that painting is a very isolating occupation. “I try to
get 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 my
conversation is between me and my paintings.”
She usually works on different pieces at one time, always in a series of like colors. “They
speak 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 and
gives 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 her
husband, 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 you
show 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 at
the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Like her approach to her work itself, she is, she said, “making
an 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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Deborah T. Colter's extraordinary abstract view - Martha's Vineyard Times
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