Jangarh Singh Shyam (1962–2001) was a pioneering contemporary Indian artist. Jangarh was born into a Pardhan Gond family in the village of Patangarh, Eastern Madhya Pradesh. He grew up in extreme poverty which forced him to quit school and try his hand at farming. He grazed buffaloes and sold milk in a nearby town. Jangarh was approached by the talent scouts of the arts museum Bharat Bhavan, he met the artist Jagdish Swaminathan which led to a lifelong collaboration between the two.
Swaminathan convinced Jangarh to come and work as a professional artist in Bhopal. Swaminathan showcased Jangarh’s first sample paintings at Bharat Bhavan’s inaugural exhibition in February 1982. Soon Jangarh was employed in Bharat Bhavan’s graphic arts department, and he began to live with his family behind Swaminathan's house in Professor’s Colony, Bhopal.He achieved fame quickly when, in 1986, merely five years after his 'discovery', he was conferred the Summit Award which is the highest civilian award bestowed by the Government of Madhya Pradesh.
He was subsequently commissioned to do the exterior murals for Vidhan Bhavan which was the new legislative building in Bhopal designed by the renowned architect Charles Correa. In 1989, his art was displayed in the Pompidou Centre’s Magiciens de la Terre (Magicians of Earth) exhibition in Paris. He went on to do residential stints at the Mithila Museum in Tokamachi, Japan. The primary subjects of Jangarh’s paintings are Gond deities like Thakur Dev, Bada Deo, Kalsahin Devi and others. He also depicts cutout-style portraits of animals. Tigers, deer, turtles and crocodiles crowd his canvases.
Jangarh used lines of coloured dots to create shapes and patterns in his paintings. The dots were inspired by the tattoos that form a part of Gond life. Jangarh also used other techniques like "fields of dense cross-hatching, tightly drawn comb-lines, rows of tiny ovals, bands of dots, sometimes accompanied by narrow squiggles and small irregular amoeba-like forms". His paintings have employed peripheral contours of radiating lines to suggest power or movement. His famous painting Owl (1997, acrylic on canvas) employs this technique.
His work has been exhibited widely the world over including Bhopal, Delhi, Tokyo and New York. His most notable exhibitions include the Magiciens de la terre in Paris (1989) and Other Masters curated by Jyotindra Jain at the Crafts Museum, New Delhi (1998).