Deconstruction: Prabhakar Kolte – [MUMBAI] – Sushma Sabnis

There are times in life when artists choose

to redefine the dynamics of their art practices,

especially when one has a penchant for

experimentation and an innate restlessness like

Prabhakar Kolte. Being one of the pioneers

of the abstract school of thought in J J School

of Art, he now takes a road less traveled and

analyses his experiences of being an abstract

art practitioner. His solo show, ‘Deconstruction’

at Gallery 7, Mumbai offers a few insights into

the thoughts and nuances of his works and art

practice, says Sushma Sabnis in her review.

The works of Prabhakar Kolte have been classified as pure

abstraction. In an interview a few years ago the artist revealed that

while working on a painting, his approach is not to create a form or

a known recognizable shape, but to let colour by itself define and

govern the canvas. Colour itself becoming a visual language, from

being merely seen as the alphabet of a language. As one sees in this

exhibit, most of the works have a single dominant colour and little

‘windows/ breathers’ or daubs of intense colours interspersed within

this dominating colour. Kolte does not plan his work, his approach to

the canvas is almost a childlike exploration, and the first unplanned

stroke of the brush is often the initiator of the entire work. Dripping

paint, intricate meshwork like mixing of colour ‘threads’ give a sense

of mystery to his works. The revelations of these tiny windows serve

only as a hint as to what happened before the curtain of one colour

fell over it. The interpretation of the works is left to the viewer.

What stands out in his work is his focus on subtle acts of erasure.

Reminiscent of the few artists from the school of erasure thought,

like Robert Rauschenberg (Erased De Kooning Drawing 1953), John

Latham (Skoob towers,1968) the black flat canvases of Ad Reinhardt

(1966-67), Kolte erases any form or suggestive symbol/ elements

from his works. This urges the viewer to see the painting from a

non-referenced perspective. One often interacts with an art work,

with a sub-conscious referring/correlation, a reminder of things and

events. When viewing Kolte’s work one sees what is ‘shown’. It would

be prudent to say that the works do not generate any thought or

tell any story, but at first glance they appear as simple colour fields.

The artist himself urges the viewer not to derive any connotative

meanings initially, but just to experience the work