Benjamin Chee Chee

Ouellette said "Let us also recognize one of the finest artists of Canada, Benjamin Chee Chee. He always refused to be an indigenous artist; he was a proud Anishnabeg. He drew simple lines, usually acrylic on paper. Highly influential in his time, he said he did not paint the past but the present, the living of today. We can see his works, like the flock of four geese. They represent the four directions of the unborn, the youth, the adults and the elders all moving in the same direction. Even though he died in tragedy and is buried in Ottawa, far from his land and people, he still inspires today." https://openparliament.ca/debates/2019/5/2/robert-falcon-ouellette-3/only/

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. Chee Chee's work has been exhibited posthumously throughout Canada.

Chee Chee's first exhibition was held in 1973 at the University of Ottawa. Soon after he gained fame as he developed his unique style of clear graceful lines and minimal colour, depicting birds and animals. 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". 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.

Chee Chee's early life was troubled and he lost track of his mother, for whom he spent many years searching. He moved to Montreal in 1965 where he developed his love of drawing, and moved back to Ottawa in 1973.

Kenneth Thomas Chee Chee (26 March 1944 – 14 March 1977), known as Benjamin Chee Chee, was an Ojibwa Canadian artist born in Temagami, Ontario.