Painted Strokes is an unusually large painting for Baliga, who tends to work on an intimate scale. The painting's size gives it an absorptive quality, the “painted strokes” of herons capturing ephemeral traces from the artist’s memory. The luminous medium of casein tempera, built up in layers of vivid pink and blue, produces subtle, shifting effects in what Baliga calls a “dialogue with colour”. Simultaneously immediate and referential, Baliga’s work draws from diverse traditions: Impressionist palettes, Mughal miniatures, the films of Satyajit Ray, and the works of his contemporaries, like Gieve Patel and Sudhir Patwardhan.

Mahesh Baliga documents vignettes from everyday life, capturing memories and intricate observations. He is known for producing small-scale, “lap-sized” paintings, a format he discovered when commuting back and forth from Veer Narmad South Gujrat University, where he taught for several years. His economical set-up, including lightweight boards and fast-drying pigments, allows him to work quickly from spaces like his outdoor studio or the bed of a local guesthouse.

Born in Karnataka, Baliga received his BFA from the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, University of Mysore, and his postgraduate diploma in painting from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Today, he continues to live and work in Vadodara, drawing inspiration from his surroundings.

This work was first exhibited as part of the exhibition It’s a Normal Day (2020) at Project 88, which presented a recurring cast of characters from “normal” life, including friends, strangers, wildlife, and self-reflexive scenes of the artist at work. Baliga’s work has been displayed across India and internationally, including at the Kochi Biennale (2021) and Bengal Biennale (2024), and is held in public collections in India and the United States.