Born on the banks of the Brahmaputra in Jamalpur, Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh in 1936, Ganesh Haloi moved to Kolkata in 1950 following the partition of India. The trauma of the uprooting left its mark on his work as it did on some other painters of his generation. Haloi has a very strong sense of oneness with nature, especially landscape, one of his deepest source of inspiration. He merge with the landscape that he loses his own identity; there is no sense of alienation for him. “My feelings and affection are here. The mountains, the people playing folk songs on the banks, I do not think it is something separate from me. I am not apart from the landscape”, he says.

In the late 1950’s, when he was assigned to reproduce the frescoes of Ajanta by the Archaeological Survey of India, Haloi was mesmerized by the magnificent murals of Visvantara Jataka, the lotus motifs, mandalas, apsaras, demons and deities painted on the ancient cave walls.