Portrait of a Lady Painting

Diaa Bekheet is an artist and award-winning journalist. His interest in art began in the early days of his childhood in the 1960s, when he learned about his famous artist uncle, Ibrahim Shahda, who lived and died in France, leaving a legacy of figurative and abstract art. Diaa paints extensively when not working as an author, writer, editor and photo journalist. He has been drawing and painting for years. His 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. Diaa’s 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. Diaa Bekheet is currently a news editor with VOA (). He joined VOA in Feb. 1989 as an International Broadcaster, hosting a variety of popular news and entertainment shows such as Newshour, Radio Ride Across America, Business Week, and Jazz Club USA. He has interviewed a number of Jazz celebrities, including the legendary Dizzy Gillespie, Ramsey Lewis, Wayne Shorter, George Benson, Dianne Reeves and others. He also worked for a host of media outlets, including ETV News, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) and the Associated Press.