Important Notice

MADHYA PRADESH
1990
Kirgi Jhaad
Signed in Devnagari and dated '1990' (lower centre) and title inscribed in Devnagari (lower right); inscribed 'KIRGI JHAAD 1990' (on the reverse)
Acrylic on paper
27.75 x 22 in (71 x 56 cm)


Hailing from the Gond tribe in Madhya Pradesh, Jangarh Singh Shyam lived in the jungles of Mandla until a chance encounter with the Modern artist Jagdish Swaminathan in the 1980s. Swaminathan, who was leading an Indian collective on a study tour with the aim of creating a collection of tribal art in Bhopal, came across Shyam's house, whose walls were adorned with his art. Upon enquiring, they met Shyam - only a teenager at the time, but with a striking style of painting.

Swaminathan took Shyam on as his protege, bringing him to Roopankar Museum in Bhopal, where he learned to transfer his art from walls to paper. He created a series of works on paper and canvas which are displayed at Bharat Bhavan today. "His first large works on paper from the start of the 1980s contain highly expressive forms of great simplicity redolent of primitivism." (Herve Perdriolle, Indian Art: Contemporary, One Word, Several Worlds, Milan: 5 Continents Editions, p. 61)

Shyam's forms were based on the deities and divinities of the Gond tribe, and the animist culture of worship surrounding them. Suspended in space, he rendered them like silhouettes creating the effect of shadow puppets, in swatches of bright colours, featuring dots and hatched lines. The inspiration for using fine dots comes from the Gond tribe. "Jangarh explained to me that when the shamans of his tribe go into a trance, they have the feeling that the particles of their bodies disperse into space to join with those of the spirits and form other bodies. This is an ancestral, poetic vision of the atom, of the infinitely small joining the infinitely large." (Pedriolle, p. 63)

In 2010, the Musee du quai Branly in Paris held an exhibition called
Other Masters of India, which carried large works on papers by Shyam from the later 1980s and early 1990s, which according to Pedriolle, "reveal a development in the direction of a profusion of psychedelic colors and more elaborated forms. The second half of the 1990s was marked by an unusual refinement, pictorial maturity, and graphic mastery that resulted in some of his best works." (Perdriolle,p.61)

Shyam worked with several mediums throughout his career, including drawing and silkscreen painting, rediscovering a new style and representation every time. As he achieved fame, Shyam encouraged other artists in his community to paint, giving them access into the mainstream. His house was the studio, where he provided his students with paper, canvas and paint, encouraging them to find their own expression through new mediums.

Shyam passed away in 2001under tragic circumstances in Japan. He was in his early thirties. In a short-lived but exceptional career, he left behind a powerful and dynamic legacy which reached for the new while preserving the roots of the Gond artistic tradition.

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