Kenneth Thomas (Benjamin) CHEE CHEE (1944-1977)
Kenneth Thomas Chee Chee, more widely known as Benjamin Chee Chee, was a self-taught Canadian artist of Ojibwe descent. Chee Chee was born at the Temagami Reserve in Northern Ontario, Canada.
Chee Chee was a prominent member of the second generation of Woodland School painters. While many young Woodland artists worked within the style of the Woodland School’s founder, Norval Morrisseau, Chee Chee preferred to take influence from modern abstract art, resulting in a more minimalistic and graphic style.
Chee Chee developed a unique style of drawing characterized by clear graceful lines and minimal colour, typically depicting black geese and wildlife. Though his art featured a great deal of iconography often used by Canadian First Nations artists, Chee Chee had denied his art had symbolic meaning. He instead referred to the animals featured in his art as “creatures of the present”. These drawings first drew the public’s eye in 1973 after he held his first exhibition at the University of Ottawa.
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