“There is a movement in your work.” The observation created by an art collector in the old London for decades compared to 13 -year -old Jina Raghavan applied an artistic seed which would later bloom in the canvas.Today, Jeena Raghavan’s painting can be found from Bangalore to upper west in the lower east side of New York in the penthouse. But his path for recognition was marked by twist, pivotes and perseverance.Raghavan’s story begins with his name, a departure from the tradition that reflects his artistic journey. She was named after her grandmother, named Lakshmi, but was called “Jigina” for her bold sequin options at that time. Over the years, “Jigina” evolved into “Jeena”, and after falling in love with Italian culture, he decided to keep it. Raghavan now carries a name which means “to live.”“Growing up, I really didn’t like my name because it seemed off-beat,” she believes. “But as I started the journey and realized how easily people can pronounce it, I started looking at it differently. It became something unique and beautiful.” For Raghavan, living means “to express myself. When I express myself with my art or my feelings, I care when I think I’m really living.”The irony of Raghavan’s visit is that formal art education almost derailed his artistic aspirations. Despite his first exhibition in 13 (a series of Ganesh paintings he was built at Holland Park, London, and shortly thereafter he was displayed on the Vippol Street). “I did not show enough prep work behind my final painting. I simply got in the flow and this piece of a cow was made on Holi and the piece was titled “Aftermath”.,While his school dismissed the work for lack of process documentation, a gallery contact which was also a patron saw his work and declared it a “gallery-tier”. In the Parsons School of Design in New York, Raghavan initially chased the portrayal, thinking that it was a “attractive career”. But a professor saw that his paintings looked like paintings and encouraged him to pursue fine arts. He said, “She said that she found typography next to these paintings,” she remembers.
Artists in your studio, BangaloreRaghavan separates the work, it is not just movement, but has an extraordinary relationship with color. She describes herself as a “color explorer”, sometimes she estimates 75 different colors of red in a single piece. “I am not easily satisfied with just a few colors,” she says. “I like to go into a depth of searching a color and almost tired, seeing how much I can get out of each color.,This approach comes from partially intuition and partially from technology. “Some pictures have a more structured plan, but others I follow my intuition and test myself. I get out of everything and go to some kind of meditation state, almost an artificial sleep.” “When people look at my work without any reference, they often say such things,” It seems that it is going on, “or” It is slowly coming towards me. “For years, Raghavan opposed the thinking of art as a career. Even after graduating from Parsons, he tried nearby fields, worked in Kate Kudal, A Gallery and Christies, auction house. In Christie, his manager saw him drawing on his table and commented, “I love them!” When Jeena realized that she is more than a painter than the designer.The turning point came during Kovid when she went back to India and sold some pieces. But still, “I didn’t think my art as a career. My mindset probably changed about two years ago, leading to some frequent sales and studio trips after a series of exhibitions in New York.”So when Raghavan was running through Soho and carelessly mentioned to a gallery worker that she was an artist, that conversation included her in a group show with 100 other emerging artists in Chelsea, her first real break. “It was such a big thing for me that I was asked to show two big 4 to 5 feet paintings,” she says about the show, which had a line to join a line and Femak Jensen, attracted to notable attendees, including Hollywood actresses, who are known for her role in the film “Tekan”.The show gave birth to other people, and finally for his first single exhibition at the Revelation Gallery in West Village in January 2024. The inauguration night derailed almost a storm, but 150 people were still shown. “Two paintings were sold on the opening night, and then the next month five and later,” she misses. Shortly thereafter, Raghavan made one of his most meaningful pieces: a picture of Ramanujan. Rich in painting, symbolism and color, recently established in Stanford.
Ramanujan | 36 x 36 in | Acrylic and pastel on canvasHeyThe most memorable moments in Raghavan’s visit came even when tennis legends Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf became the collectors of their work.
Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf in Vegas with their painting“I wanted to catch the warmth between them,” she says. “His life got the purpose at such a young age, and his tennis was full of career movement.”Raghavan’s work is a symbol of his global upbringing. Born in London, educated in India and New York, and now living between Bangalore and New York City. The herr color palette is attracted to Indian textiles and spices, while its brush strokes and movements reflect and speed the energy of the city of New York. His biggest task is a 6-foot painting by 9-foot painting of a tiger from the story of Ayyappa, a warrior deity “Aiyappa’s waiting”, which gives an example of this fusion. This piece combines abstract background texture with rhetorical elements, religious tale with contemporary techniques.This transition from struggling artist to professional selling has not reduced his relationship with work. “I move up between abstract and rhetorical language,” she says. “My rhetorical work is quite intact that it is identity but not realistic. It is contemporary, modern. There is a type of fusion of all places I won.”For an artist whose name “live” means, Jeena Raghavan has found a way to live through her colors that seem to breathe, movement that crosses peace, and a vision that refuses to be inherent by any one tradition or place.
