Prabhakar Kolte

Prabhakar Kolte was born in 1946 and received his diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1968 and taught there between 1972 and 1994. He has had several solo shows and participated in important group exhibitions throughout his career including ‘Art- Mosaic- celebration of Calcutta’s Tercentenary’, Calcutta and Mumbai (1990); ‘Wounds’, CIMA Gallery, Calcutta (1993); ‘Parallel Perceptions’, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai (1993,1994); ‘Watercolours: A Broader Spectrum-II’, Mumbai (1995); ‘Three Artists’, Hong Kong (1995) and Galerie Foundation for Indian Artists, Amsterdam (1996); ‘Six Indian Painters’ curated by Geeta Kapur at Toto grad, Yugoslavia, Ankara and Istanbul (1985).

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. 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. His early canvases are characterized by a single, dominant colour in the background, on which lighter and more complex geometric or organic forms are juxtaposed. Kolte lives and works in Mumbai.