Cheenu Pillai Biography 
Cheenu Pillai is an artist and painter from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He is best known for blending European expressionism with Dravidian themes and creating unique works. He frequently includes cubism, expressionism and Orphism forms of European arts to form fusion works with Indian culture. He is a noted painter of modern art in the present times. He is a self-taught artist and art is his passion, though he didn’t think about it as a full-time profession at first.
He was born on December 19, 1971 in Pattukottai of Tanjore district. His childhood days were spent in Tanjore and he developed interest towards art and drawing since a younger age. His elder brother is also a noted artist who inspired young Cheenu a lot from the beginning. He was interested in the religious images, sketches and portraits of gods since young. He well noticed the symmetry and balance of Hindu idol pictures and he merged them with his imagination. Though leaned towards art, he never thought of making it as his profession. He was good at academics and after completion of MBA, earned a high profile job in banking field.
He had a brief stint in Europe which brought back his art interests back to life. He regularly visited galleries learning many new things. In 2003 only, he decided to quit his stable job and took art as his full-time option. But in parallel he worked on some consultancy works in software. He exhibited his works for the first time in 2004 at Apparao galleries, followed by 2007 and 2009. His unique representation of hybrid forms of modern art earned him quick recognition.
Published: N/A
Updated: June 16, 2014
