Born in the village of Patangarh in the Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh a central Indian state, Ram Singh Urveti has traveled a long distance to reach the place of acclaimed artist. Ram Singh came to the city of Bhopal with his wife’s uncle Jangarh Singh Shyam a well-known Gond tribal artist. Ram Singh began work planting trees and then started to paint as an assistant to Shyam. Considering his natural talent Shyam encouraged him to paint his own work. Ram Singh as a teenager used to paint ritual murals in his village. “People liked my dexterity in drawing and they invited me to paint their walls”, Ram Singh explains. Once he started painting on paper Ram Singh’s work got attention in art shows and soon he was recognized for his beautiful pictorial narrations of Gond religious and social life. Although he uses bright and vibrant colors his black and white work has come to be his signature work in which the intricacy of design exudes dark flames of the mystery of primeval creativity of his tribal world. In his work Ram Singh mostly paints trees but other elements of his universe like animistic gods-goddesses, origin myths, shamans, birds, animals and fellow human beings also appear.
Today Ram Singh Urveti is known as the stalwart in Gond painting. His talent and artistic genius are recognized in the long list of prizes and honorable mentions which he has received. In the 41st National Exhibition 1998, Ram Singh Urveti’s work was accepted as an important example of Indian tribal art by the Lalit Kala Akademy (LKA). That same year he was bestowed with the South-central Zone Cultural Centre Award for Tribal Art. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Kalidas award. Ram Singh with other Gond tribal artists Bhajju Shyam and Durga Bai received the Italian Bologna Ragazzi (children’s book award) for their collaborative fine art book “The Night life of Trees”.
