The landscaper

Artist Ganesh Haloi creates his own fantasy world with his abstracts on nature, and likes them to be open ended.

Reality suffocates artist Ganesh Haloi. "We make our world beautiful by abstraction," he reasons, as his gouache on paper paintings capture Nature "" his constant muse.

Haloi, born in 1936, attributes his inclination towards natural settings to his childhood days in Jamalpur in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), recalling the rich green landscape and the river nearby his house; "That impression is lifelong," he says.

After graduating from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata in 1956, Haloi started documenting the Ajanta cave paintings as a resident artist with the Archeological Survey of India.

His seven-year Ajanta stint sharpened his penchant for natural landscapes.

An academic reader later with his own college in Kolkata once he returned from Ajanta, and so till he retired, Haloi stresses the need for professional training in fine arts.

"Professional training is important to learn the finer techniques of each medium and refine one's work," says Haloi, who chose watercolours to express himself "" experimenting with transparent, opaque and wash paintings.

As Haloi traces his own trajectory as an artist, he recalls some of his earlier works when as a young artist he tried to copy nature's nuances and colours while dabbling with human figures.

Working with many mediums, gradually, Haloi found his aesthetic sensibilities drawn towards abstract renderings of landscapes.

Haloi's compositions are reflections of his visions that direct him towards a form that presents an innate lyricism. "What I see I don't paint, I paint what I see," says Haloi. He confesses an urgency to relate to the space and distance between him and an object, till the object's impression becomes a part of him. It leads to "its actual form becoming deformed", he quips.

Haloi's abstract works have at times been seen as aerial superimpositions but the artist is quick to dismiss this, explaining that he tries to capture the whole spectrum.

"Looking ahead while travelling on a road does not deny the relation with what is being left behind, nor with what is above and below," he argues, adding a syncretic, "It may look like an aerial view, but it is actually an overall view."

As dots, curves, lines and other forms become cryptic signs for trees, green fields, water, birds, animals and insects, Haloi is creating his own fantasy world. Little objects "" could be butterflies, insects or birds "" dominate most of his works.

"An independent world where there are no questions and no answers, no images and no reflections," says Haloi, who lets every individual interpret his work in his or her own way. He dislikes titles. He'd rather they're left unbound by names or statements.

Coloured backgrounds at times are contrasted with the vacant starkness of the paper in others, but to Haloi, "the unfilled spaces are not 'left out' but are just white".

Possessive of his canvas's space, Haloi feels like a "conqueror" of land once he holds a paper before starting to paint, gradually crafting his conquered land in "not too bright colours". He gives high regard to "space needed in every aspect of life", and his works reflect it.

The mood of Haloi's abstract world ranges from the festive to the quiet. "Our nature is harmonized, its relation with life has to be stable with equal expression of happiness and sadness," says Haloi, turning a touch pensive.

Says Gallerist Renu Modi of Gallery Espace, where Haloi's recent works are displayed, "Haloi is a master in gouaches. His elements of nature in abstract forms have created his own language where the use of space is fantastic."