Venkat Raman Singh Shyam
Jangarh Singh Shyam's nephew and a second-generation Pardhan-Gond artist from Madhya Pradesh, innovates Jangarh Kalam with bold waves, vivid colors, and contemporary themes from global events to tribal myths.
Born in 1970 in Sijhora village, Mandla district, Madhya Pradesh, into a Pardhan-Gond family, Venkat began drawing on walls as a child despite cultural taboos on charcoal, later apprenticing under his uncle Jangarh Singh Shyam in Bhopal from age 16 in 1986. He supported himself through grueling jobs like rickshaw-pulling, domestic help, house painting, and signboard art in Bhopal and Delhi before committing fully to painting, developing a distinctive style with bright acrylics, diagonal shading bands (lahrs and lahrsdaar waves), refined pointillism, and realistic figures blending Gond deities like Khero Mai with modern subjects.gondart
His works reflect personal journeys and world events, such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks (Attack, Signal, Rescue) and volcanic eruptions (Aag), exhibited globally at NGMA Mumbai, Queensland Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, and Paris galleries. Coordinated a Gond folktale animated film winning the 2007 Inverness Film Festival Trophy; authored acclaimed graphic autobiographies Finding My Way (2016) and Ganja–Mahua Chronicles (2019) with S. Anand.
Awarded Madhya Pradesh's Rajya Hasta Shilpa Puraskar in 2002, he lives and works in Bhopal, pushing Gond-Pardhan art into murals, etchings, mixed media, animation, and contemporary discourse.
