Diaa Bekheet is a Washington-based award-winning multimedia journalist, and self-taught artist. He learned the fundamentals of art in elementary, middle and high schools. He was highly influenced by his uncle, Ibrahim Shahda, whose paintings are hanging in Musee Calvet, next to Paul Cezanne’s in Aix-en-Provence, Southern France. Diaa has been painting on/off since he graduated from college with a BSc in 1982. As a broadcaster, Diaa hosted hundreds of jazz shows, and got to know the art of improvisation first-hand. That’s what he does in abstract painting: improvisation.

Diaa’s strong desire to express art on canvas made him turn pen to a paintbrush and translate skills learned as a writer-photojournalist into visual art. His paintings – which have strong texture with a softness, rhythm, and energy – are both abstract expressionistic and sometimes minimal. He paints with oil, acrylic, house paint and other mixed media.