Mayank Shyam
(b. 1987)
Mayank Shyam is a renowned Gond artist born in Bhopal. He is the son of one of the world’s most popular Gond artists, late Jangarh Singh Shyam. Shyam was one of the youngest members of the Jangarh School at the age of 23.
Shyam started painting at the age of 14. Since, he has participated in a number of artist camps organised by Eklavya Book Publication like the Vanya Prakashan, Bhopal (2006), Primal Force (2006) at Kolkata’s CIMA Gallery and others. Shyam’s group shows include Kolkata Freedom: Sixty years after Indian Independence, at CIMA Gallery, Kolkata and Museum Gallery, Mumbai (2008), In search of context, CIMA Gallery, Kolkata and Chemould Gallery, Mumbai (2009) and many others. His works were also included in the Indian Contemporary Art auction at Sotheby’s, New York.
In 2006 Shyam was conferred the state award by the Hasta Shilpa Evam Hathkargha Vikas Nigam, Bhopal, by the Madhya Pradesh government.
Shyam has his own distinctive gond art style in which he paints. Many of Shyam’s motifs represent the modern city. When he visited Mumbai for the first time he experienced the macro city — its crowd, tall buildings, the pace. In one of his paintings, he drew the city skyline and the buildings. Many art critics judged his paintings, they said, “It isn’t Gond art”, “It doesn’t carry the traditional patterns”. But Shyam says, he makes his paintings for nobody but himself. He also says, “I never make paintings that are purely observational; every painting carries a philosophy, a message or a story.”
His most loved work of Gond is Kakai Kata. It is a story told to him by his father, neighbours and relatives on several occasions in his childhood. The painting depicts Lord Ganesha guarding the cave in Kailash Parbat that housed his mother. Ganesha’s mother, Goddess Parvati was anxious about her son’s safety, so she planted the “kakai kata” or green pumpkin plant 10 steps ahead of Ganesha for his protection so that anybody coming for her son would be trapped by its thorns. But Ganesha instead guarded his mother.
He lives in Bhopal where he has his studio on the floor above his home.
