Kolte freely acknowledges his early debt to Klee, where in earlier days people used to call him Indian Paul Klee. He was then busy searching for himself. 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 titled 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 Klee`s influence.

On returning to the canvas,his forms began to function as pure colour in space. His works began looking more glossier, more finished to his early themes in paintings. The strong ground colour remained, but this time the forms retained a crispness in line and colour thus the finished work looking more finished & more abstracted fields of colour.