• 1964-68 Diploma in Painting, Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai
Born in Maharashtra he studied paintings at the Sir J.J School of Art, where he later taught between 1972 and ‘94. His standing as a teacher is considerable, and he continues to live and work in Bombay. Kolte demonstrates a rare commitment to the abstract/modernist idiom in the face of current trends and fashions. For twenty-two years teacher at the Sir J.J. School of Art, which is in fact associated with abstraction, he cites Samant, Gaitonde and Ambadas as mentors and looks to Marathi literature, particularly the more contemporary poets and writers like Balachandra Nemade for conceptual guidance. Kolte’s early work owed much to Paul Klee, in terms of motif and also in thinking -‘Nature is not what you see, but what you don’t see; what you see is only the aftermath, for nature has already moved on hence the forms of nature.
Kolte's abstract layering with paint echo cityscapes where the signs and textures reveal his modernist consciousness. Bands of color juxtaposed against each other create bold ascensions and recessions.
Prabhakar Kolte thinks in terms of colour, paint and forms. He does not consider painting in terms of representing the object world or of social values. However his attempt through his art is also to be part of nature, not imitating it, but following it, or simulating the spirit of nature. He believes that painting should be pure, since it has its own life, autonomous and not an illustration. In the process he mostly does gray oriented paintings, and believes that painting must bridge the gap between light and dark, which says, neither in the light nor in the dark.
The early work of Prabhakar Kolte shows the strong influence of Paul Klee, the Swiss artist and teacher whose childlike figures belie the sophistication of his richly textured surfaces. Indeed, Klee's influence was felt by many of Kolte's classmates studying at the J.J. School of Art in the late 1960s. Kolte's debt to Klee can be seen in his technique of weathering his stronger colors, adding touches of white to age the effect of an otherwise bold hue.
In the early 80s, his work took a new direction as Kolte began experimenting with installation and performative art pieces. In one piece, he covered a car with newspaper; in another, he painted a volunteer black and entitled him "A Man without Shadow". Such off-the-canvas experiments allowed him a free space to play with abstract ideas of color and form outside the shadow of Klee's influence.
His early canvases are characterized by a single, dominant color in the background, on which lighter and more complex forms, both geometric and organic, are placed. He sought to "immediately cover up any identifiable image, making sure that my forms would function as pure colour in space." His most recent works show a glossier, more finished approach to his early themes in paintings. The strong ground colour remains, but this time both it and the forms overlaid onto it retain a crispness in line and colour: the "weathering" inherited from Klee has dropped out in favor of more finished - and thus more abstracted - fields of colour.
Kolte spent twenty-two years teaching at his alma mater, the .J. School of Art. He retired in 1994, and now lives and devotes his time to painting in Mumbai.
“My painting is my visual monologue.”
- By Prabhakar Kolte
• Galerie Helene Lamarque - Paris, France
• Bodhi Art Singapore, Singapore
• Gallery Soulflower - Thailand, Bangkok
• Glenbarra Museum, Himeji, Japan
• CIMA - Centre International Modern Art, Calcutta
• Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore
• Galerie 88, Calcutta
• Gallery Sanskriti - Calcutta, Calcutta
• Prakrit Art Gallery, Chennai
• Bodhi Art Mumbai, Mumbai
• Gallery Chemould - Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
• The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai
• Bodhi Art New Dehli, New Delhi
• Rahul & Art, New Delhi
• Gallery Threshold, New Delhi
• Artpilgrim, London (England)
• Bodhi Art New York, New York City, NY
