Artist Ganesh Haloi's Chennai exhibit explores time and memory in abstract watercolour

“Don’t expect loud colours or giant canvases screaming for attention,” warns Anahita Daruwala Banerjee, curator of the latest exhibition, Fragments of a Horizon: Watercolours by Ganesh Haloi. This show is quiet—but it pulls you in. It’s subtle, sophisticated, and honestly strangely calming, she adds.

Ganesh Haloi's exhibition reflects on silence, time, and everything in between

The exhibition, which features about 25 works (mostly watercolour ones) by artist Ganesh Haloi, reflects on the memory, silence, time, and everything that connects them.

Born in Jamalpur, Bangladesh, in 1936, Ganesh moved to Kolkata after the Partition of India, an event that left a lasting imprint on his artistic vision. His early work with the Archaeological Survey of India deepened his fascination with history and memory, which later found their way into his layered, poetic landscapes. Over the years, he’s carved out a language of abstraction that’s entirely his own. His watercolours have travelled across cities like New York, London, Hong Kong, and Dhaka, finding homes in collections around the world.

“Ganesh Haloi is the kind of artist who doesn’t need to make noise to be iconic. He started with figurative art, then slowly stripped away everything unnecessary—like a spiritual Marie Kondo of painting. His works feel like whispers that somehow say more than most people shouting,” says Anahita.

Ganesh’s abstraction isn’t random shapes; it’s emotion that’s been distilled to its purest form. He proves that less really is more and that watercolour can be more powerful than oil if you actually know what you’re doing.

As Ganesh Haloi himself observes, “By abstraction we make our world beautiful, as if salvation is freed from the bandage of preoccupied thoughts and thus delights us.” His “horizon” is not just landscape; it’s that line between what you remember and what you feel.

In Fragments of a Horizon, each work of his becomes both fragment and totality—visual poems that hold within them echoes of time, space, and remembrance. They invite the viewer into a contemplative dialogue, not with a landscape as it exists outside, but with an inner terrain shaped by abstraction.

Anahita hopes that this showcase will give people permission to slow down. “We’re all so used to noise—constant content and constant opinions. Ganesh Haloi’s work is the opposite. It doesn’t demand attention, it earns it. I want people to realise that calm can be powerful, subtlety can hit hard, and not everything meaningful needs to be dramatic. If the show helps them pause, notice, and reconnect with themselves—even for a minute—that’s the win,” she shares.

Open to all. On till October 31. 10.30 am to 6.30 pm. At Artworld – Sarala’s Art Centre, Teynampet.

Email: apurva.p@newindianexpress.com

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