Francis Cleetus is an Indian-American creative director, cartoonist, painter, and sculptor. He picked up and developed these skills while working on multinational brands at ad agencies in India, Hong Kong and the US. A member of the National Cartoonists Society of America, Francis is the creator of the tech toon It's Geek 2 Me. He has drawn cartoons for the Pittsburgh Tech Council's TEQ magazine, Tata Consultancy Services' @TCS magazine and other publications. A self-taught artist, Francis has created contemporary art based on Indian themes since the nineties. In the course of his day job as a creative director, he has also developed award-winning ad campaigns for brands like HP, Moen, Philips, Maker's Mark, Nike and MTV, among others. Francis lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States with his wife and two daughters, and continues to create new ads, cartoons, paintings and sculptures for a global audience.
Over the years, Francis' art has been featured in various visual art exhibits. In 2012, the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh commissioned him to recreate ceiling murals from a 16th-century palace for their 'Tropical Forest India' exhibit. In 2017, the Asia Institute – Crane House based in Louisville, invited Francis to showcase his artwork in a solo exhibition. Pittsburgh's #Notwhite Collective featured Francis' work in their 2018 juried exhibition 'In Between the Middle'. In 2018, the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council invited Francis to create "Karmalogue", a themed art show, as part of the quarterly Gallery Crawl organized by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. The Westmoreland Cultural Trust put together "Conglomeration", a group show with Francis and three other artists in August 2018. The RAW artists organization invited Francis in November 2018 to participate in their Pittsburgh creative showcase "Ovation" featuring over 60 artists. In January 2020, Francis' work was part of the "Past, Present, Future" show organized by the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council to celebrate '10 Years of Art on the Walls' along with 140 other visual artists.
Advertising campaigns
An insightful copywriter, art director and creative director, Francis has created advertising campaigns across traditional, digital, social and unconventional media at ad agencies in three countries. After spending his formative years in the ad business at Draft FCB in India, he moved in the mid-nineties to Hong Kong and worked at Ogilvy, JWT and D'Arcy, before relocating to the United States in 2001 to work at Doe-Anderson. In 2007, he moved to Pittsburgh-based agency, MARC USA and worked there for several years. His integrated advertising campaigns have crossed geographic as well as cultural borders, and won a host of international creative awards.
Art for dogs
Inspired by the fact that dogs have their own premium cable television network called DOGTV and exclusive art shows in London and New York, Francis created a unique collection of conceptual photography art just for dogs in 2019. Every piece of art in the collection at art4arf.com is conceived from a dog’s perspective of the world. Right from larger-than-life dog portraits; fire hydrant centric scenery; dog food still life to renderings of chewed-up balls and flying frisbees. Printed on canvas, the pieces are designed to be hung at a dog's-eye level next to its bowl and add unexpected elegance to the dog parent's home.
