woodcut print on Rives BFK; each 15×11″

“During this Covid pandemic and the prevailing fear, anxiety, deep rooted concerns with life and death and material necessities that it has generated and imposed, I needed badly a spiritual connection to surpass the trouble of the moment. I resorted to the “Beatitudes” and created a series of 9 woodcuts, one for each of them. I decided to write them in Arabic, a link to my native roots, and carved their words repeatedly, floating through my woodblock like an incantatory prayer. Their abstract, yet unifying design, was for me meditative, and contributed to a contemplative mood.”
“Beatitude #1: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Beatitude #2: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
“Beatitude #4: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

ARTIST BIO: Saad Ghosn, a native of Lebanon, has lived in Cincinnati since 1985. A retired physician and Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati, Saad resorts to visual and spoken art to express himself and his social and political views. He believes that activism is at the heart of art expression and is the founder and president of ‘SOS ART’ and the editor and publisher of the yearly ‘For a Better World, Poems and Drawings on Peace and Justice by Greater Cincinnati Artists’. Saad has written about many of Cincinnati’s Artists Activists including in his book Greater Cincinnati Artists as Activists.”