“Geometric shapes provide the blueprint for Colter’s paintings. Squares, rectangles and irregular angular forms are the focal point — providing balance and setting the predominant color scheme. From there all types of other design elements integrate fluidly so that the resulting image is soothing — far from chaotic.
“It’s an interesting process — I’m always building,” says the artist. “I like construction/deconstruction. It’s always a mystery where it’s going to lead. I never know. I think to myself, ‘Take me on a journey. Show me what you want.’ I trust that the universe will show me something interesting in some way.”
excerpt from “Warming up up winter at Louisa Gould Gallery”
Gwyn McAllister - Martha’s Vineyard Times 2/29/24

“I think of my work as a form of visual poetry,” she says. “Poetry can be kind of obscure but still be absolutely gorgeous. With my work, you may not be sure what you’re looking at, but it can still affect you. You just have to be there and allow the magic to happen.”
As with lyric poetry, where the expression is less about narrative and more about rhythm and sounds and the juxtaposition of words and imagery, Colter’s mixed-media works contain many unrelated elements that combine to create a flow and invoke a mood.
Colter builds up each piece using layers of acrylic paint, painted paper, and other collage elements, along with bits of drawing made with charcoal, pastels, or crayons. She also sometimes scrapes away at the existing paint to add further markings and texture.
excerpt from “Artist Deborah Colter guides her paintings to where they want to go”
Gwyn McAllister - Martha’s Vineyard Times 8/10/19

"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 complexity of shapes and patterns that holds the viewer's interest.
- excerpt from "Deborah T. Colter’s extraordinary abstract view",
Karla Araujo -Martha's Vineyard Times, 7/10/13

"Her distinctive abstract paintings are meticulously considered planes and layers of colors in well-ordered geometric landscapes. Using an adhering gel, she incorporates paper onto the surface, brushing them with colors that create surface textures. Her paintings reveal clarity, mastery, and confidence as she selectively employs mixed media, linear embellishments, and punctuations of color."
-excerpt from "Deborah T. Colter's abstract landscapes",
CK Wolfson -Martha's Vineyard Times7/22/11

"In Colter’s work, even circles, lines, and squares are mysterious things. Bolstering the effect is her technical working style: a collage-like process of building layers of acrylic paint with paper and other materials, sanding the surface, scratching it, and building again."
-excerpt from "Deborah T. Colter"
Mary Grauerholz -Cape Cod Life 2011 Special Arts Section  6/2011

"Her canvases are composed of a combination of methodical arrangements of rectangular and square shapes embellished with line and often punctuated with a selective focal point of color that lends clarity and emphasis to the rest of the canvas. She works in acrylic, building up layers of color, and collage elements to create texture and patterns by scraping, rolling, scribing, scratching, and using dripping techniques to achieve the desired effects."
-excerpt from "Deborah Colter: Design for painting"
Tamar Russell -Martha's Vineyard Times7/2010

..."Colter blends order and chaos in a more opposite fashion ... by using a more orderly and linear application of various media, textures, and marks that results in paintings that appear to be little internal rooms of controlled chaos. She likens her paintings to a “visual record of the mind” that mirrors the chaotic bombardment of images or “mixed messages” (hence the title of her show). By removing the obvious details of their subject matter and reducing them to simple, repetitive patterns we become aware of the play between the simple and the complex, leaving room for own interpretations of these alluring works."
-excerpt from show review "Mixed Messages | Deborah T. Colter
Tugging at Numbness with an Undertow of Something | Allison L. Compton
Red Door Gallery" - Diane R. Gunter Urge 2/17/2008 

…“Some work does appreciate. The Island (Martha's Vineyard) 
has its share of artists whose work is in consistent demand, and continues  
to significantly appreciate. Among others, they include Alan Whiting, Kib Bramhall, 
Deborah Colter, the late Stan Murphy, Wendy Weldon, and Ray Ellis. 
Their work continues to increase both in demand and value. “…
- excerpt from "Art: For Love or Money", 
Karla Araujo - Martha's Vineyard Times, 6/28/07

"Colter’s use of color is noteworthy. Though she cites Van Gogh’s intense palette as an influence on her own work, she often applies neutral colors broadly and 
thematically to convey a fixed and familiar experience. Also, by repeating various objects and small patterns in each piece, she unifies other dissimilar elements that might otherwise stand alone. ...But Colter’s artwork is far from staid. While she defines boundaries, she’s not afraid to paint outside the lines. Instead, surprises await the viewer in every piece." ..."In all, Colter’s work speaks for itself. Each invites inspection. No interpretation necessary."  
- excerpt from "Art: Between Chaos and Harmony", 
Amy Simcik Williams- Martha's Vineyard Times, 7/28/05 Read Entire Article

"While this Island has no lack of art that is lovely to look at, it is always refreshing to see a show of work here that also engages the intellect."
- excerpt from "Five Artists, One Nest: Group Show at The Dragonfly,"  
Laura Roosevelt - Martha's Vineyard Times, 9/26/02

"Her works are intensely textured and colorful, with suggestions of geometry, pattern and hieroglyphics. In "Perception of Recall" as in other works, her use of plastic mesh suggests the seepage between our interior and exterior worlds, between truth and illusion. She implies that the spaces we deem to be containers for what is within are not, in fact impervious to what is outside, and vice versa. She describes her process as "trusting the inner thoughts of the mind as they reveal themselves purely through the act of creating" as though for her, the boundary between her internal and external worlds is almost imperceptible..." 
- excerpt from "Five Artists, One Nest: Group Show at The Dragonfly,"
Laura Roosevelt - Martha's Vineyard Times, 9/26/02

"Ms. Colter’s dazzling canvases express a linear quality through the architectural and directional lines that are scribed into the painted surfaces. Both her framed paper and canvas wrapped panels are structurally organized and complex. They are textured with overlays of metallic paint, screens, printed words, cut paper shapes and punctuated with perfectly placed dots and slashes of bright color..."
- excerpt from "Artist's Discuss Joint Exhibition in Program at Dragonfly Gallery,"
CK Wolfson - The Vineyard Gazette, 9/27/02

"...energy seems to quietly rise from the surface of her paintings; layers of acrylic color in quick strokes, immediate, separately declared, yet intimately partnered. Shapes, color, texture - a geometric landscape revealed in delicate shades of earth greens, ochres and sand...she incorporates cut paper into the surface, brushing the overlays with colors and manipulating the textures..."
- excerpt from "Deborah Colter, One Womans Life as Collage" , 
Artist Profile by CK Wolfson - The Martha's Vineyard Magazine, July/August 2001