Born in 1982 in Karnataka, India, Mahesh Baliga received a BFA from Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts (CAVA), Mysore University (2005), and a postgraduate diploma in painting from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (2007) in Vadodara, where he currently lives and works.

Baliga has held six solo exhibitions at Project 88 in Mumbai since 2009, most recently A Butterfly in Amazon (2023). Mahesh Baliga: Drawn to remember was presented in David Zwirner’s Upper Room, London, in 2022. In 2024, Tracing Footprints on Fading Ground, a group of five paintings by Baliga, was part of the inaugural Bengal Biennale. His work was also included in Lokame Tharavadu (The World Is One Family), Kochi Biennale Foundation, Kerala (2021), among other group exhibitions.

Baliga’s work is in the collections of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi; Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore; and the Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum, Clarinda, Iowa, USA. The artist has held teaching positions at the Surat School of Fine Arts, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat; Navrachana University, Vadodara; and the College of Art, New Delhi.