Ganesh Haloi’s name is perhaps inseparable from his minimalist idiom and his ability to discard all superfluities to present the essence of life in the barest of lines and geometric shapes. It is rare that work from the artist’s past is exhibited, works that are completely unlike Haloi’s abstract style — a categorisation the artist is not too fond of — and reveal only occasional glimpses of the style that he is now synonymous with. Presence & Absence (held recently at Debovasha) was one such exhibition. It featured 12 striking portraits from 1995 based on the artist’s sketches of the people living in the villages of Aurangabad from the time that Haloi worked at the Ajanta caves in the late 1950s, documenting its murals for posterity.

Most of these paintings are of children, whose ‘gaze’ the artist admits to being drawn towards. Indeed, the eyes make for the most fascinating bits of the portraits. Children stare back at the artist — and, in turn, the viewer — with curiosity, surprise, nonchalance and, in the case of one arresting portrait, with the awareness of being sketched. But unlike now, when photography and the selfie have become ubiquitous and changed the body language of portraits, this slender pre-teen girl strikes a pose that is demure and without guile (picture, left). Yet another girl is more carefree and boldly poses with her arms tucked behind her head. A portrait that bears hints of his later style is that of a small child with slightly overgrown hair and eyes shyly averted from the artist (picture, right). Here, the eyes have become dots, the nose is a small triangle and, in the background, we see the shapes and forms that have now become Haloi’s signature.

Of the two depictions of adults amidst this gallery of children is a gouache and pastel drawing done on board that beautifully brings out the profile of a woman through just a few supple lines. The other one is a poignant moment of closeness between an old woman and a young man who look at each other wordlessly, communicating with their eyes.