Durga Bai Vyam

Durga Bai Vyam is a Pardhan Gond artist whose paintings draw on the folk tales, myths and stories of her community. She was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of art, from Madhya Pradesh ^[1].

From walls to paper

Durga Bai was born on 1 January 1976 into a Pardhan Gond family in Barbaspur village, Dindori district ^[2]. She learned digna, the geometric patterns painted on the walls and floors of homes, as a child ^[2]. After marrying the Gond artist Subhash Singh Vyam she lived in Sunpuri village, and in 1996 the family moved to Bhopal ^[2].

There she painted digna on the walls of their rented home, and the work caught the eye of Jangarh Singh Shyam, the father figure of Pardhan Gond painting, who encouraged her to paint on paper ^[2]. Her career began at an artists’ camp at Bharat Bhavan in 1996 ^[2].

Stories in pictures

Her paintings are known for bright colour and for telling stories ^[2]. She has shown her work in many exhibitions, at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2018, and in London, Dubai and Frankfurt ^[2]. Since 2003 she has illustrated books, mostly for children, among them One, Two, Three and The Night Life of Trees from Tara Books and Khichadi, the first big book in Hindi, from Eklavya ^[2]. She also illustrated Bhimayana, a graphic biography of B. R. Ambedkar that takes up the issue of caste discrimination ^[2].

She received the Rani Durgawati National Award for traditional painting in 2009 and the Aditya Vikram Birla Kalakiran Award in 2013 ^[2].