Benjamin Chee Chee

• Born — 26 March 1944 • Birthplace — Temagami, Ontario, Canada • Died — 14 March 1977 • Place of death — Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Field — Painting • Training — Self-taught • Movement — Woodland School of Art

Chee Chee's father died when he was very young, and as a child, Chee Chee was separated from his mother and sent to residential school. He later spent 12 years searching for her before he found her. He moved to Montreal in 1965 where he developed his love of drawing, and moved back to Ottawa in 1973. • Illustration — Goose in Flight, an original Chee Chee painting as seen in The Canadian Encyclopedia

Chee Chee's first exhibition was held in 1973 at the University of Ottawa, and featured abstract compositions of block-stamped geometric motifs. By 1976 he had gained recognition as he developed his style of clear graceful lines and minimal colour, depicting birds and animals. Though his art featured iconography often used by Canadian First Nations artists, Chee Chee denied his art had symbolic meaning. He instead referred to the animals featured in his art as "creatures of the present". He also specifically referred to himself as an Ojibway artist, as opposed to allowing himself to be categorized under the broader net of simply an "Indian" artist. "I like to express my own feelings, not my Indian-ness. I express myself, the way I feel."

• 1973: University of Ottawa; • 1974: Canadian Indian Art '74, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario; • 1976: Inukshuk Gallery, Waterloo, Ontario; • 1977: Marion Scott Gallery, Vancouver; Links to Tradition, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (travelling); • 1983: Retrospective, Thunder Bay Nation and Exhibition and Centre for Indian Art; • 1991: Benjamin Chee Chee: The Black Geese Portfolio, and Other Works. Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Ontario; • 2018: Benjamin Chee Chee: Life and Legacy, the Temiskaming Art Gallery (travelling).

After finding his mother and achieving success as an artist, Chee Chee died by suicide in an Ottawa jail in 1977. He was buried in Notre Dame Cemetery in Ottawa, Ontario.