Nankusia Shyam was born in 1972 in Sonpuri, Maharashtra. Her husband, renowned Gond artist Jangarh Singh Shyam groomed her in Gond art. Nankusia is inspired by nature and its various forms all of which are reflected in her paintings. She paints all kinds of animals, which she saw while growing up in Sonpuri. Nankusia Shyam works in Bharat Bhawan. She has illustrated a children's book, Bulli and the Tiger, published by Puffin Books. Nankusia has travelled extensively in India and abroad. She hasexhibited her works in Chennai, Bangalore, Kerala, Mumbai, Dubai, Japan, Sri Lanka and other countries. She was conferred a state level award by the Madhya Pradesh Hasta Shilpa Vikas Nigam in 2002 and given the Jangarh Samman in 2010.

Gond is a form of Indian folk and tribal art named after the largest tribe of central India with the same name. The word Gond is a derivation of the konda word meaning green hill which consists of parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chattishgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Orissa. The inspiration behind Gond art is almost always nature and social customs represented through a repetitive patterning of dots and dashes. Each artist uses this patterning to create his or her own signature style while choosing colour schemes and subjects that are indicative of the communities they represent. The forest and its creatures are a major theme in Gond art. The community's myths inspire artists to create images with a certain "royal" character, which it is perhaps possible to interpret as an artefact of a time when the Gonds ruled much of central India. The largeness of each creature and tree, irrespective of the size of the canvas, is related to this and to the reality of a landscape once densely populated with wildlife with which humans interacted closely. Today, Gond artists are able to mobilize this history to create a wide variety of art that manifests specific forms of knowledge and experience, which they represent in identifiable pictorial styles. Gond art's repertoire of birds, animals and folklore are still a part of their animistic beliefs even as they travel far from home.