Jeena Raghavan: A life in color and form

“There’s movement in your work.” That observation, made by an avid London art collector decades older than the 13-year-old Jeena Raghavan , planted an artistic seed that would later bloom into canvas.

Today, Jeena Raghavan ’s paintings can be found in galleries in New York’s Lower East Side to penthouses in the Upper West Side to Bangalore. But her path to recognition was marked by twists, pivots, and persistence.

Raghavan's story begins with her name itself, a departure from tradition that mirrors her artistic journey. She was named after her paternal grandmother, whose given name was Lakshmi but who was affectionately called “Jigina” for her bold sequin choices at the time.

Over the years, “Jigina” evolved into “Jeena,” and after falling in love with Italian culture, she decided to keep it. Raghavan now carries a name that means “to live.”

“Growing up, I actually didn't like my name because it sounded off-beat,” she admits. “But as I started traveling and realized how easily people could pronounce it, I began to see it differently. It became something unique and beautiful.” For Raghavan, living means “Expressing myself. When I express myself with my art or my emotions to people I care about, that’s when I feel like I’m really living.”

The irony of Raghavan's journey is that formal art education nearly derailed her artistic aspirations. Despite having her first exhibition at 13 (a series of Ganesha paintings she created in London’s Holland Park, and shortly after exhibited them on Wimpole Street). “I didn't show enough prep work behind my final painting. I just got in the flow and created this piece of a cow on Holi and the piece was titled “Aftermath.”

While her school dismissed the work for lack of process documentation, a gallery contact who was also a mentor saw her work and declared it “gallery-level work.” At the Parsons School of Design in New York, Raghavan initially pursued illustration, thinking it was “a more lucrative career.” But a professor noticed that her illustrations looked more like paintings and encouraged her to pursue fine art. “He said he felt bad putting typography next to these paintings,” she recalls.


The artist in her studio, Bangalore

What distinguishes Raghavan’s work isn’t just movement, but her extraordinary relationship with color. She describes herself as a “color explorer,” creating sometimes what she estimates to be 75 different shades of red in a single piece. “I am not easily satisfied with just a few colors,” she explains. “I love to go into the depth of exploring a color and almost exhausting it, seeing how much I can get out of each color.”

This approach comes partly from intuition and partly from technique. “Some paintings have a more structured plan, but others I follow my intuition and test myself. I tune out from everything and go into some sort of meditative state, channeling almost a hypnotic force.”

“When people see my work without any context, they often say things like, ‘It feels like it’s moving,’ or ‘It seems to be slowly coming towards me.’”

For years, Raghavan resisted thinking of art as a career. Even after graduating from Parsons, she tried adjacent fields, working at Kate Spade , a gallery, and at Christie’s, the auction house. At Christie’s, her manager saw her drawing at her desk and remarked, “I love those!.” That’s when Jeena realized she’s more of a painter than designer.

The turning point came during COVID when she moved back to India and sold a few pieces to acquaintances. But even then, “I didn't think of my art as a career. My mindset probably changed only about two years ago, after a series of exhibitions in New York started leading to some consistent sales and studio visits.”

So when Raghavan was walking through SoHo and she casually mentioned to a gallery worker that she was an artist, that interaction led to her inclusion in a group show with 100 other emerging artists in Chelsea, her first real break. “For me it was such a big deal that I was asked to show two large 4 by 5 feet paintings,” she says of the show, which featured a line to get in and attracted notable attendees including Famke Jennsen, the Hollywood actress best known for her role in the movie “Taken”.

That show led to others, and eventually to her first solo exhibition in January 2024 at the Revelation Gallery in the West Village. The opening night was nearly derailed by a storm, but 150 people still showed up. “Two paintings sold on the opening night, and then five more later the next month,” she recalls.

Shortly after, Raghavan created one of her most meaningful pieces yet: a portrait of Ramanujan. The painting, rich in symbolism and color, was recently installed at Stanford.


Ramanujan | 36 x 36 in | Acrylic & pastel on canvas

One of the most memorable moments in Raghavan’s journey also came when tennis legends Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf became collectors of her work.


Andre Agassi & Steffi Graf in Vegas with their painting

“I wanted to capture the warmth between them,” she says. “Their lives found purpose at such a young age, and their tennis careers were filled with movement.”

Raghavan's work embodies her global upbringing. Born in London, educated in India and New York, and now living between Bangalore and New York City,. herHer color palette draws from Indian textiles and spices, while her brush strokes and movement reflectmovement and pace reflect the energy of New York City.

Her largest work “Waiting for Ayyappa” is a 6-foot by 9-foot painting of a tigress from the story of the warrior deity Ayyappa, which exemplifies this fusion. The piece combines abstract background textures with figurative elements, religious narrative with contemporary technique.

This transition from struggling artist to selling professional hasn’t diminished her connection to the work itself. “I fluctuate between abstract and figurative language,” she explains. “My figurative work is abstract enough that it’s identifiable but not realistic. It's contemporary, modern. A sort of fusion of all the places I’ve lived.”

For an artist whose name means “to live,” Jeena Raghavan has found her way of living through colors that seem to breathe, movement that transcends stillness, and a vision that refuses to be contained by any single tradition or place.