Jangarh belonged to the Gond community of Mandla district in Madhya Pradesh. In 1981, artist J Swaminathan discovered his talent and brought him to work at the Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, when Jangarh was just 16. Here Jangarh developed his own style, a brilliant mix of tribal and modern contemporary art. After moving to Bhopal, Jangarh perfected his art and evolved into a specialist in Brush and Pen Paintings.

Jangarh's works reflect the innocent vision of the tribal mind executed with the confidence of a creative genius. Some of his famous paintings include those of the leaping tiger, images of deities from the tribal pantheon, images of birds and peacocks, to name a few. His paintings have movement and vibrancy. His was a world of gods and goddesses, of birds, animals and trees, which he painted stroke by stroke, creating a strange repetitive textural pattern. Having settled in Bhopal, the entire flock of his forest friends surfaced one by one in his numerous paintings and drawings, perhaps to ward off the phantoms of the city. The village deities like Bagh Dev and Marahi Dev stood guard, staring into the eyes of viewers to exorcise their suspicious intents.

In 1985, Jangarh won the Shikhar Samman, the highest honour in Madhya Pradesh for an artist. In 1990, he painted the main dome of Bharat Bhawan in Bhopal that depicted the Gond Deity, Baradeo. Jangarh was invited to Paris for a show at the famous Pompidou Centre. He also travelled to the US, UK and many other countries to exhibit his works. He painted the interiros of the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha and distributed the fee of Rs.7 lakhs that he received to his fellow artists and the people of his village, despite the fact that he lived in a modest accommodation in Bhopal.

Jangarh Singh was one of the five tribal artists selected to be part of an arts program called the 'Other Masters' at the Crafts Museum, New Delhi. Like many folk artists from India, Shyam was also invited to work at the Mithila Museum, Japan, which resulted in a body of work which is now in the collection of the museum. Shyam passed away in 2001 and in a short-lived but exceptional career, leaving behind a powerful and dynamic legacy which reached for the new while preserving the roots of the Gond artistic tradition.