The Shape of Her Bite is a solo exhibition by Indian artist Mahesh Baliga presented at STEVENSON. The exhibition marks Baliga’s first presentation with the gallery and features new paintings created using casein tempera on canvas, board and wasli paper.
Baliga lives and works in Vadodara (formerly Baroda), where he completed his postgraduate studies in painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. The institution is closely associated with the development of the Baroda School, a movement that brought together Western modernist approaches with traditional Indian representational styles to produce a distinctive form of narrative figuration. Artists associated with this circle include Bhupen Khakhar, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Sudhir Patwardhan and Gieve Patel.
Themes in the Work
Across The Shape of Her Bite, Baliga reflects on love, solitude and the passage of time. The exhibition takes its title from a poem by A. K. Ramanujan, which describes the lingering trace of a person’s presence in the imprint left on a half-eaten sandwich. This quiet moment becomes a metaphor for the artist’s broader interest in how memory and emotion attach themselves to ordinary objects and everyday actions.
Baliga often focuses on what he describes as the “ignored everyday”, small gestures and rituals so familiar that they are rarely noticed. Within his paintings, longing appears in subtle forms: through fragments of domestic life, fleeting encounters, or the marks left on bodies and objects. Animals also appear as recurring figures, their uncertain or captive states quietly mirroring human vulnerability.
Materials and Painting Technique
The works in this exhibition are painted using casein tempera, a binder derived from milk that has historically been used in Indian miniature painting traditions. Baliga combines the medium with natural mineral pigments such as lapis lazuli, cinnabar and malachite.
The paint is applied to a variety of surfaces including canvas, board and wasli, a traditional handmade paper made from layered sheets that are pressed and burnished to create a smooth painting ground.
Casein tempera allows Baliga to build delicate tonal shifts through thin washes of colour. Rather than relying on strong outlines, the images emerge through subtle gradations of light and atmosphere. This approach lends the paintings a dreamlike quality in which observation and imagination begin to merge.
About the Artist
Mahesh Baliga lives and works in Vadodara, India. His paintings often explore emotional and psychological states through scenes drawn from daily life, memory and personal reflection.
Baliga’s practice draws on the narrative traditions associated with the Baroda School while developing a quieter, introspective visual language centred on solitude, longing and the passage of time.
