In a recent review of a two-person exhibition (Whitehot Magazine,[1] 2017) Drexler's work as clearly referencing the long tradition of American abstraction and the established legacy of the New York School.
The luminosity and high key saturation in Drexler's work are created through multiple layers of glazing of pigment mixed with polymer and alkyd media.
[citation needed] The installation included large-scale paintings, woodcarvings, a thatched hut, and fabricated writings such as emails, faxes, press releases, journal entries, and artist's statements.
"[3][4] In “Debra Drexler: Resuscitating Gauguin”[5] in NY Arts Magazine (May/June 2005), Molly Kleiman states, “The installation, an exercise in post-colonial appropriations and feminist inversions, is playful and subversive.
She explores themes obliquely and cleverly, forcing no brittle lessons about the conflicts of post-colonial, no stubborn treatise on the poisonous male gaze.
In a review of Shadow Play at HP Garcia Gallery, Michael Carter wrote in A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine[7] (June 25, 2010), ” Like the most powerful abstract paintings of the last century, reproductions can only provide a crude chart of her stratagem; the luminosity of the oils themselves, along with their deft application can really only be truly appreciated in person.
She exhibited with historically significant painters, including Willem de Kooning, Sol LeWitt, Yayoi Kusama, and Frank Stella.
In 1986, she co-founded the non-profit Riverfaces in St. Louis with Ann Julien, which sought to create a positive sense of community identity through free arts workshops and an annual parade featuring giant puppets and thousands of masked participants.
Artists exhibited at the UH venue included Terry Winters, Julie Mehretu, Barbara Takenaga, and Odili Donald Odita.